Blazin' Gears
by Lurker A
Summary: Some folks from the Guilty Gear universe have been spotted around Kagutsuchi. How will this affect the wheel of fate? Action, comedy, and unrequited romance await.
1. Those cats will eat anything

Rachel was bored. Granted, the amount of times she had seen the same "earth-shattering" events play out over and over would make anyone either incredibly bored or border on the edge of insanity, so this was nothing new. In fact, she could swear that Valkenhayn had brewed the same pot of tea that he had made this very same day a few cycles ago.

But even through her bored exterior, something seemed different this time. Something was not quite right in this current timeline, as if new actors had suddenly appeared on the grand stage without telling her. She made a note to investigate this further, but only after she finished her tea this morning.

"Is something the matter, Madam Rachel?" Valkenhayn appeared out of nowhere, as he usually did when he thought Rachel wanted or needed something, "You seem troubled."

"Nothing you need concern yourself with, Valkenhayn." Rachel stood up, having finished her tea. "I'm going out for a bit. Watch the house while I'm gone."

"Certainly, madam."

Rachel clapped her hands twice, "Nago, Gii, let's go." Her chair from before morphed into an umbrella with a cat's face on it. But something seemed to be missing. "Gii, where are you...oh, that's right. Nago, spit him out."

The cat face on the umbrella spit the small, chubby red familiar out. Gii started to whine, but Rachel ignored it. Instead, she said, "Have you learned your lesson now, Gii?"

"Y-yes, I won't knock over a painting by accident anymore m-mistress..." Gii was still suffering from the horror of being trapped in his friend's mouth for a whole day.

"Good, then we're going." With that, Rachel shifted out of the area.

* * *

Somewhere in Orient Town, there was a restaurant that served what it claimed to be Oriental food. The man could have sworn it was little more than chunks of chicken-like substance deep fried and slathered with sauce so no one would notice, but then again he wasn't quite in a position to be picky. He took up a seat at a table as he tried to figure out what the hell was going on.

Some map he'd glanced at referred to this city as Kagutsuchi. That didn't seem like any city he'd ever heard of. Nonetheless, he had to eat something to keep up his strength, so he decided to stop in this place and grab some food. He hoped they would at least take his money here.

Just as he was about to grab his chopsticks and dig in, a strange, yellow, cat-like…thing jumped on his table and started eating the food right off of his plate with an audible "OM NOM NOM" sound. It freaked the hell out of this man.

"Hey, what the hell are you doing?" The man shouted, "This is my food, go buy your own!"

The cat-thing ignored him and continued eating. The man drew his short sword and tried swinging it at the cat to shoo it away. The cat responded by jumping back.

"Hey, rooster man!" The cat-thing shouted. Ragna could see the outline of red eyes and a pair of sharp teeth, but its face was otherwise hidden by the shadow of its overly-large yellow sweatsuit. "Why are you so rude? I don't attack you when you're eating!"

"But…that's my food!"

"C'mon rooster man, I'll take you on for it!"

"My name's Sol! Stop calling me rooster man!"

"Okay rooster man, you asked for it!" The cat-thing began shadow-boxing the air in front of it, "Rawr! Meowr! Ffft! You dare to take on Taokaka, the greatest vigilante ever?"

"Tao-what?" Sol cocked an eyebrow, "Greatest-what?"

"CAT SCRATCH ATTACK!" Large claws suddenly protruded from Taokaka's overly large paw-sleeves. However, because she announced her attack beforehand, Sol easily blocked the strikes as Taokaka scratched at him with her claws. "Hahaha! Wheeee this is fun!"

The infamous Sol-Badguy could have easily beaten this cat thing under normal circumstances, but the sheer craziness of her attacks and her attitude caught him off guard. "Dammit cat, get off me! I'm not playing this stupid game!"

"Okay!" Taokaka immediately stopped attacking. As Sol paused to examine this strange tactic, the cat-person leaped over his head, grabbed what remained of his food, and escaped from the resturaunt with his lunch plate. "Buh-bye rooster man!"

Sol's brain tried to comprehend what had just happened, when he heard an angry man shouting, "Hey! You pay for that now!" Sol turned to his right as he saw a chef from the restaurant gesturing at him with a butcher knife. "No free meal!"

"But that cat thing…"

"I don't care, you pay now, or you do dishes for dinner tonight! You run, I call cops!"

Dammit, barely an hour in this strange city, and already things had gotten weird. "Fine," Sol growled, dropping a few World Dollars on the table and walking out the door. He didn't hear the chef screaming that his money was fake as he ran before the guy could catch him.

This was going to be a long day.

* * *

Elsewhere, a blond man with a large sword found himself accosted by two men wearing blue armor. Each of them held a spear, though it was more ceremonial than anything that could threaten someone like, say, Ragna the Bloodedge, but it gave the NOL troops a small sense of security.

"Hey, look here Rosen." One of the armored men spoke, "Don't that look like Major Jin Kisaragi to you?"

"Indeed, Gilden," the other NOL trooper responded, "he does bear a striking resemblance to our missing Major, perhaps we should inform our superiors about this?"

"I'm sorry," The blond man said, "I don't know who this Major is…you're probably mistaking me for someone else."

"Well well well," Rosen spoke, "Tell me Gilden, am I blind in any way?"

"No Rosen, you got 20/20 vision!"

"Exactly, so unless my eyes are lying, you indeed look pretty damn similar to Major Kisaragi. You got the big sword, the hair, the pompous look…"

"I told you before, I'm not a Major of anything. My name is Ky Kiske, and I am serving the Inter…"

"Okay then, Ky, let's assume you are indeed telling us the truth. Then might I ask what you are doing impersonating an officer in the military branch of the Novus Orbis Librarium?"

"I don't know of this organization you're talking about, I'm just trying to find…"

"Well, it seems we got ourselves a smart-ass, don't we Gilden?"

"I'm afraid so, Rosen. Looks like we'll have to take him back to headquarters for questioning, see if he really isn't the Major."

"I'm telling you, I don't have time for this." Ky Kiske winced as Rosen pulled out a whistle and blew it hard. A few seconds later, Ky was surrounded by armed NOL soldiers.

"Well then, not-Major, I suppose you should free up your schedule for the next few days." Gilden snapped his fingers, "You're gonna be taking a little walk up to the Library here in Kagutsuchi with these men. Now we can do this real peaceful-like, or you can try to resist and there will be pain and suffering on your part."

Ky thought about his situation for a moment, then decided to tell the soldiers, "Take me to your commanding officer."

"Good, he's going along peacefully." Rosen and Gilden watched as the soldiers escorted him up the hill. When he was out of earshot, Rosen looked at Gilden and said, "Can you believe it, we actually captured a guy!"

"I know, Rosen, how often does that happen?"

"We should totally get smashed after this shift to celebrate!"

"Totally!"

A small rumbling sound echoed in the distance.

"Hey Rosen, that explosion came from the Port!"

"Not our jurisdiction, Gilden." Rosen gripped his spear tightly, "Besides, if there was an explosion, we're probably better off not investigating the cause of it."

"Yeah, you're right. Let someone else lose their life in a battle with a guy who's above any level they could hope to reach."


	2. Those Jellyfish Are Real Touchy Feely

"Ohnonononono." The engineer aboard the airship muttered to herself, "This is bad, this is very bad!" She raced up to the bridge to tell the captain the news when a sudden impact shook the ship and sent her flying down the corridor. The engineer rolled with it and fought through the pain to keep running. She'd deal with the bruises later.

"Captain!" She shouted, "Captain, there's some kind of strange energy in the air!"

"Oh June," the captain replied calmly, as if she was just telling him about the weather, "you think you could be a little less specific?" The ship rumbled again as the crew struggled to keep their footing on the ship's floor, but the captain stood relatively still.

"I…I don't know what it is!" June shouted, "It's stopping our radar dead! We can't even see the weapon, we just see that it's starting to crumple the hull of this ship like a tin can faster than my girls can fix it, and the stabilizers are taking a pounding! If we don't land and patch things up soon, it might start hitting something critical!"

_Ugh… _Johnny thought, rubbing his temples with his hands._ Probably some new anti-air weapon Zepp came out with._

"Johnny!" May ran onto the bridge, gasping, "We have to land, the ship can't take much more of this!"

"Ugh…" Johnny had hoped that Zepp would give him a little more time to make off with his latest haul, but then such was the life of a Jellyfish Pirate. No plan ever survived contact with the enemy. "Fine, where's the nearest port?"

* * *

Elsewhere in the ship, Jam Kuradoberi was getting a bit pissed off. The lunch she had spent all day working on was spilling out of the pot despite her best attempts. And before any of the girls could sample it, they were running to and fro. It figured that after losing all her money trying to open up a brand new Chinese restaurant, some asshole would burn it down again.

Jam could hear the voice of her grandmother mocking her. _"You need to settle down, get yourself a husband, have some children, then maybe you wouldn't keep getting such bad luck,"_ she would say. Jam wanted to continue proving she was a chef, and the best one there was, so she decided to take this small job as a cook aboard an airship. She didn't realize until too late that she was cooking for an infamous band of almost all-female pirates led by some hotshot American. But hey, it was a living.

She started scooping some of the remaining food onto a couple of plates, scooped them up with her hands, and began to run up to the bridge. Sure, the ship might be getting hit by Zepp gunfire or something like that, but Jam would be damned if her newest job vanished and food was wasted because some idiot burned down her kitchen again.

* * *

Lieutenant Noel Vermillion looked up at the clock and sighed. Apparently, she did arrive a little earlier than necessary. She didn't know why the head of the NOL's Intelligence Division would ask to meet her in the main Port of Kagutsuchi, but this was a big chance to prove her worth as a military officer, so she decided to accept the job. It sounded simple enough: Find Major Jin Kisaragi and convince him to come back to headquarters. They were both military officers and classmates, so it would not be that big of a problem, right?

Suddenly, she turned her head to the left, and saw a ship trailing smoke as it approached the port. As she continued watching, the ship suddenly grew bigger and bigger in her field of view as it came closer and closer. Unlike most ships in the port, it didn't seem to be slowing down. A man stood on top of the tower trying to signal the ship with semaphore, and when that failed the man simply tossed a colored flare up into the air and climbed down the ladder as fast as he could.

The ship came closer and closer, and Noel was stuck between wanting to run away from the impending carnage and staying out of a sense of duty.

Finally, the ship made a hard turn as it slowed down and got incredibly close to port, but gravity slowed down the change of speed until the ship finally crashed into the port, the solid brick and concrete just barely stopping the ship before it could do any serious damage. Still, the docks were probably going to need a little maintenance. In fact, it would probably take a few weeks just to get the ship repaired or salvaged.

Noel glanced at the clock again. Her contact still had not arrived. She took a deep breath as she walked towards the damage ship. It looked like she was the ranking officer on site, and she was going to have to deal with the problem until otherwise noted.

* * *

The Jellyfish Pirates slowly made their way up to the deck as they threw a self-inflating slide over the port side of the ship. Considering their usual ramp was blocked, they had to do it this way. One by one they slid down the ramp with the speed and precision of a military outfit. Eventually, April slid off the ship, then May, then June. Jam was crying as Johnny escorted her to the slide.

"There there, Jam." Johnny gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder, "It'll be okay."

"All I wanted to do was cook." Jam sobbed as she remembered how she dropped the food on the plates when the ship made an emergency landing at port, "I didn't want any of this pirating, just a kitchen that didn't burn down on me!"

"Don't worry, the kitchen's still there." Johnny leaned in close to her, "I'm sure I can make it up to you when we get it fixed."

"Really? You would do that?"

"For you? Anything."

May stared at Jam and Johnny with murderous intent for a brief moment, then turned around to see a young blond girl with a blue beret running up to them. "Excuse me, who is in charge of this vessel?"

"Johnny." May pointed up to the man who appeared to be feeling up Jam at the moment, "Hey Johnny!" She shouted to him, "Some girl wants to talk to you!"

"Oh, another one?" Johnny looked up with interest. "She wants to audition for the crew too?"

"What?" Noel gasped, _though he does look kind of handsome…I wonder what his favorite…no! Focus, Noel! Focus!_ "I'm Lieutenant Noel Vermillion."

"Lieutenant?" Johnny asked as he came down the inflatable slide, "You part of Zepp's military?"

"Zepp? What's that?"

"Zepp, the flying continent?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. This is Kagutsuchi, and I represent the military of the Librarium."

"Really?" Johnny walked towards the Noel, "I gotta say, you're way prettier than any librarian I've met before."

"Um…thanks, I guess." Noel was unsure about what to do in this situation. _Stay calm…stay calm…_

"Tell me, what made a pretty little girl like you join a library?"

"Well, um…I…" Noel was at a loss for words, as the man continued walking towards her, carrying nothing but what appeared to be a wooden stick in one hand, "I…was admitted into the Academy in…"

"Look, I'm sure it's a fascinating story." Johnny walked right behind her and slowly put his arms on her shoulders, "You help us out here, I'll listen to everything you have to say." His hands slowly wandered down her body, "Maybe we can help each other out."

Noel's face turned bright red with embarrassment, while May turned to one of her fellow pirates and muttered, "Get my anchor."

"But—"

"Now."

The pirate was about to climb her way back onto the ship when something exploded and a plume of fire shot out the starboard side of the ship. At the same time, Noel screamed and whipped Johnny across the face with one of her pistols. "GET BACK YOU PERVERT!" She screamed as she summoned Bolverk into each of her hands. "Johnny, you're under arrest for damaging state property, reckless endangerment, assaulting an officer of the NOL, and…and…"

Johnny rubbed his face with one hand while gripping his stick with the other, "…and?"

"…aaand SEXUAL HARASSMENT!" She fired both pistols at Johnny, but Johnny had seen the trajectory of the bullets and parried them both away from his position in one strike with his sword hidden in the large wooden stick.

"Ohohoho, you're a feisty one." Johnny smiled as he removed a gold coin from his pocket, "It's a shame it had to come to this." He flipped it up in the air, towards Noel. Noel reflexively shot at the coin, and Johnny used the distraction to rush in and kick her in the face. Noel raised one pistol up from the ground at fired it at Johnny, making him step back briefly as Noel quickly stood up.

As the fight raged on between Noel and Johnny, Jam stared at the aftermath of the explosion that had burned a hole in the side of the ship. Thinking back to her time in the kitchen, she realized she had forgotten to turn off the gas on the stove.

"My kitchen…not again…" Jam started sobbing, and she could hear the voice of her grandmother mocking her in the back of her mind yet again.


	3. Boss Battle! Well, sort of

High above the rooftops, he stalked his prey like an eagle, or a falcon, or some other kind of bird that stalks things. It had been many years since he last saw his face in the burning fields of Ikaruga, the face of the evil monster who froze his master in a block of ice and left his people to die while the Library tried to destroy the country. But as this man had told his followers, fear not, for what was Ikaruga but an idea? A country's true identity lived on in the hearts of its people, and enough people had survived and made their way to the city of Kagutsuchi that they would continue living and thriving under the ideals that Lord Tenjo had taught them. True, others had called the neighborhood "Ronin-gai," but as far as the man was concerned, it was just like their home of Ikaruga all the same.

The news had come in recently from one of his fellow Ikaruga ninjas: a man who matched the description of Jin Kisaragi had been spotted in Kagutsuchi, heading towards the Library with an armed escort. "Hey Boss," one ninja was telling him now, "You think we should wait until he is alone before making our move?"

"What, and waste this chance?" The boss responded, "I don't care how many men Jin Kisaragi has with him, I will defeat them all as long as I have the power of righteousness on my side!"

"Yeah Boss, I hear ya, but they have some pretty big guns…"

"Then how about this, you provide a distraction for the armed escort, and I will deal with Jin."

"But what if it's not the right guy?"

"Well then, I guess we'll find out, but I'm sure it's the right one. The blonde hair, the long sword, the pompous attitude…who else could it be but my arch-nemesis?"

"Well, you've never steered us wrong before."

"Exactly! That's why I must confront this foul demon, so that the memory of Lord Tenjo can finally rest in peace!"

"Hey Boss Bang," a second ninja appeared, "I've got those photos of Miss Litchi you wanted sir!"

"Really?" Bang stopped and turned around, "Let me see them!"

"Don't worry sir, no harm has come to Miss Litchi yet, but we'll let you know immediately if anyone tries."

"Aw, my sweet Miss Litchi." Bang mused out loud as he looked at the photos, staring at her lovely face, her beautiful breasts, her long legs, and then back to her breasts again. "Once I have finished business here, I will finally have the strength and courage to make her my woman!"

"No offense, Boss, but you've been saying that for the past few weeks. Why don't you just ask her out and see if she says yes?"

"What? And risk losing her forever? Not a chance! Now, here's the plan…"

* * *

"Look, I told you, I'm not a criminal." Ky Kiske told his armed escort as he was being led around in handcuffs to what he assumed was the headquarters of his captors, "I'm just trying to figure out what's going on here."

"Really? Well so are we." One of the NOL troops replied, "Specifically, why you decided to impersonate an officer of the Librarium, yet you don't seem to know anything about the NOL."

"That's what I'm trying to find out." Ky raised his voice slightly. His stint as a Holy Knight taught him a good deal of patience, but even that was starting to strain with the repeated denials that he truly didn't know any Jin Kisaragi or any Novus Orbis Librarium.

"Well don't worry," The same trooper replied, "Once we get to the Library up here, I'm sure we'll figure out your true intentions."

"For the last time, I'm not a criminal!"

"Yeah, that's the odd thing about all those people in jail right now: every one of them was convicted of a crime, but none of them are criminals. Funny how that happens, ain't it Mister Impersonator?"

Ky thought about this for a moment. It was awfully similar to a line one of his colleagues spoke when he was working with the International Police Force a few years ago, back when he was quite sure that everyone he arrested on orders was guilty of something. Then again, it turned out that not all of the men he arrested had committed crimes there, some of them just had the misfortune of crossing one of the higher-ups in the Postwar Administration Bureau. Ky suddenly recognized the irony of that statement as one of his captors repeated it back to him now. He stopped walking as he saw a figure on one of the rooftops nearby, and he appeared to be pointing a finger at him.

"Hey!" One of the escorting soldiers shouted, "Who said you could stop? Keep walking!"

"You don't see that?"

"See what?" The trooper pointed his gun up in the air, trying to figure out what Ky Kiske was talking about. After a few seconds, he decided to club Ky with the butt of his gun for being so uppity, until a couple of smoke bombs hissed through the air and landed between Ky and his escort.

"We're under attack!" A third member of the escort shouted, "Someone grab blondie here, take him to the Library! The rest of you, find cover!" Ky found himself grabbed by the arm and dragged away as the trooper held his weapon arm forward and the others tried to find their attackers through the smoke. The person he saw earlier leaped off the roof, and Ky thought he was going to break a leg, but instead he quickly came into focus as he dropkicked his escort through the face with a loud "TOOOOH!" sound before the soldier could fire his weapon.

The man springboarded off the soldier he kicked a second earlier, then tossed a shuriken that pinned his weapon arm to the ground just before his own feet landed. Ky might have applauded the action, except the man appeared very angry at him.

"Jin Kisaragi!" He shouted, "You thought you could fool me by traveling undercover with this pathetic NOL escort? Well your evil deeds end here, for I am the Ninja of Ikaruga, the Defender of Kagutsuchi and the man who fights for love and justice!" He struck a pose while taking the gigantic nail strapped to his back and tossing it directly up into the air. "I am Bang Shishigami, and it was you who killed my master Lord Tenjo and burned our country to the ground! You, the so-called 'Hero of Ikaruga' and the rest of the Library scum!"

Ky wanted to respond, but he was a still a bit in shock from the spectacle of the entire thing. What had happened to those escorts, and who was this self-proclaimed Ninja-Defender-whatever? Why did Bang have a grudge against this Jin character, and why did he also seem to think that Ky was this same guy when he never met either of them before.

"And with this battle, I shall prove that the spirit of Ikaruga lives on, and I shall avenge my master once and for all! Now, we shall fight!"

"Um…I don't suppose you could get these cuffs off me, could you?"

"What?" Bang thought about it for a moment, "Well, if you are prepared to battle me, I suppose I could make it a fair fight." Bang retrieved the key to the cuffs from the downed soldier's pocket, and tried unlocking them, but the key didn't seem to fit. After getting frustrated, he simply grabbed the nail still hovering in the air and let out a war cry as he slammed it down on Ky's hands. Ky instinctively tried to dodge, and the cuffs ended up snapping off anyway when the tip of the nail sliced through them.

"Look, I'm getting really tired of being accused of something I didn't do." Ky Kiske raised his sword and pointed it at the ninja. "So fine, I'll fight you for a bit, but when I beat you, I'm going to want some answers about this Jin Kisaragi guy everyone thinks I am!"

"Stop talking like that! You _are_ Jin Kisaragi!"

"Well explain why my supposed allies had me in handcuffs!"

"A clever ruse, but don't try to talk your way out of this one, you vile villain!"

Ky Kiske took a deep breath. "So there's no way of avoiding this? Then bring it on."

* * *

"Hey Gilden?"

"Yes Rosen?"

"Why did we let that guy keep his sword after arresting him?"

"Well, he didn't seem like a very violent type."

"Are you serious? He looked a lot like Major Kisaragi to me."

"Well, if he was the Major, there's a good chance we wouldn't be standing here talking about it now."

"True, you do make a good point Rosen. But don't you think it's a bit dangerous letting him keep that weapon? I mean, what if he ends up fighting with them?

"Oh come on, Gilden!" Rosen subconsciously smacked the hilt of his spear on the ground, "He's got five soldiers escorting him with guns, there's no way that five highly-trained and heavily-armed soldiers of the Librarium could all be neutralized at once by one man with a sword, right?"

"Well, there was that one time when they ran into the Red Devil of…"

"Pure exaggeration."

"And that other time when a creepy kid supposedly used a large marionette to…"

"Mass hallucination."

"And Ragna the Bloodedge has been destroying entire Libraries with…"

"Oh come on!" Rosen ripped off his standard-issue patrol hat, the argument and the heat of the day both making him sweat buckets in the thing. "You keep up that negative attitude and we'll never finish our shift on a good note!"

"Sorry Rosen, just saying what everyone is thinking."

"No wonder you never got promoted, Gilden."

"Well I'm sorry Rosen, not all of us can get caught screwing the daughter of their commanding officer!"

"For the last time, Gilden, she told me she was 18!"

"And I'm sure that explanation gave our CO lots of comfort when he threatened to string your ass on a flagpole and whistle Dixie around it."


	4. None Dare Call Her Little

Noel was getting very frustrated. She had practiced plenty of times with her gun-kata, and this Johnny person was just some guy with a sword! How did he keep dodging her bullets? Noel tried smacking him with the barrel itself as well, but each time he simply parried it and hit her with the sheath of his blade, as if this was just some sort of game to him.

"C'mon, baby." Johnny shouted as he ducked under another bullet, "Don't be so angry like that, I didn't realize you were that sensitive under there."

"Shut up!" Noel continued firing her pistols, but Johnny inched closer.

"Drop the guns, maybe I'll let you join my crew."

"You're a criminal, why would I join you?" Noel fired three more times from her pistols, but Johnny continued dodging or parrying the bullets. It was impossible. No one should have that kind of skill in reality. Maybe he was somehow channeling seithr through the blade to make it stronger, or maybe his reflexes were just that good.

"Hey, I'm only a criminal against those who can afford to piss on the poor and hoard all the wealth." Johnny came within striking distance and smacked Noel right in the stomach with the blunt sheath before she could block with her pistols. "Perhaps you should consider the ones you work for, librarian." As Noel regained her footing, she prepared to raise her pistols again, but Johnny brought his sword out of its sheath and made a large cut that just barely missed her neck. "Cool off, little girl. You can't beat me, you're not cut out for this line of work. Go back to school."

"You…you…" Noel was shocked at first, the man had suddenly brought out a blade, nearly cutting off her neck, or so it seemed. The act encouraged her to stop playing defensively and start getting a little more aggressive. She dashed forward and leaped into the air, with Bolverk raining down bullets into Johnny's guard as she soared over his head. Even he seemed to have trouble stopping them all, as Johnny grunted with visible pain. The moment Noel landed next to Johnny, her chest suddenly felt a little chilly. Then she heard jeers and catcalls from various observers and workers around the Port. Even some of the NOL troopers who had finally arrived on site to assess the damage did the same, though most of them seemed simply entranced by the spectacle itself.

Then Noel looked down, and saw that someone had cut away the material covering her chest without her realizing it. Her face turned bright red and she screamed out of embarrassment.

"Ooooh," Johnny smirked. "Sorry about that. We could have done this the easy way, but you were the one who pulled the trigger, now you have to live with the consequences."

"I'm a soldier of the NOL!" Noel shouted, one hand covering up her small chest, the other holding a pistol, "I will not be humiliated by some big-mouthed criminal!"

"Just give it up, little girl!"

"Little?" Noel became even more embarrassed.

"You can't beat me!"

"That's it! I'm using my ultimate attack on you!" She gripped the one pistol tightly, the second disappeared into whatever place it came from as she was using her off-hand to cover her chest. "Don't blame me for what happens next!"

"Oh come on," Johnny snorted as he shifted his stance, one hand gripping his wooden sheath and the other hovering just above the sword's handle. "You're sounding like a cartoon character. Go home and play with your dolls, little girl."

Noel rushed forward and fired at Johnny again as she ran. Johnny hopped out of the path of the shots, but Noel hopped onto his head while he concentrated on the bullets and kicked off his wide black hat, firing a few shots of seithr-laced energy into his back before she hit the ground. Johnny winced from the pain and messed up on his ukemi, and lay flat on the ground from the attack. As he tried to spring up from his position, he felt a light explosion on the spot where he lay, lifting him up off the ground.

Suddenly, the barrel of a very large machinegun was thrust into his back. Johnny had no time to counter.

Noel yelled an incomprehensible war cry as several .50 caliber-shaped rounds of pure magical energy slammed into Johnny's back, lifting him up into the air higher than before. The magically-summoned weapon was big enough that most people would have trouble keeping it steady, yet somehow Noel didn't seem to be feeling much recoil at all as she grasped it with both hands. "You're under arrest, Johnny!" She shouted as the machinegun transformed into a crossbow, and a bolt of pure energy launched from the crossbow and pierced through Johnny's torso briefly before disappearing. Johnny coughed up a little bit of blood before he hit the ground with a thud.

The Jellyfish Pirates were shocked. They never expected their leader would lose like that. How could that have happened, let alone against this strange girl? May was not as much shocked as she was angry, and she picked up a large wooden crate with her inhuman strength and prepared to throw it at Noel in revenge. No one did that to her Johnny. No one.

Before she could do that, a pair of arms gripped her throat from behind and squeezed on the artery, restricting blood flow to the brain as she dropped the crate on her foot to yank the man's arms off of her throat. However, the man's grip was too strong, and she couldn't muster enough strength as the man lifted her small yet sturdy frame into the air. The pirates were shocked at the appearance of this new attacker, but even more shocked when they saw NOL troops nearby advancing on their position. April and June yelled at the crew to scatter throughout the city, and regroup later to save their comrades. The pirates did what they could to get out of the Port, and most escaped before the troops could seal off the area.

"Ah, Lieutenant Vermillion," the well-dressed man dropped an unconscious May into the arms of another NOL trooper as he called out to Noel, "I apologize for being late, but…I must say, that dress certainly isn't up to code for a female military officer."

"I-it was his fault!" Noel blushed, keeping one hand across her chest and pointing the other at Johnny. "He was a pirate, and he had a sword, and he…he…"

"Yes, yes. Calm yourself Lieutenant. Don't worry about them, those pirates will be taken into custody and questioned quite thoroughly." The man took a chance to look at the large ship with the burning hole in the side, and then back at Noel. "Oh, where are my manners? My name is Hazama, I am the chief of the Librarium's Intelligence Branch."

"You are my contact?"

"Yes I am." Hazama briefly scratched his head buried under the green hair under his fedora before continuing. "I asked for you to come to Kagutsuchi for a mission. Again, I apologize for my lateness, but the Intelligence Branch had to scramble around at the last minute. There are strange people around that seem to be messing up this particular spin on the wheel of fate, and we're still trying to find the cause of it."

"Excuse me?" Noel didn't quite understand the last sentence. Maybe it was just his way of speaking.

"I assume it's probably just some new rabble-rousers, but you shouldn't concern yourself with these things." Hazama turned back to Noel and patted her on the shoulder, "Come with me, I'll get you some new clothes and a nice hot shower, and then we can talk about your mission."

"Thanks." Noel blushed as she was led away. Now that the adrenaline of the battle was starting to wear off, she became even more aware of her own small chest being quite exposed to the elements and could not stop thinking about it despite her best efforts. The funny looks she got from of some NOL troops and dock-workers cleaning up the scene didn't quite help either. Hazama seemed strangely jovial about the affair, yet he didn't seem to care that a slightly-naked woman was holding on his arm. Noel wasn't sure how she felt about that fact, she just wanted to get out of public before more people saw her.


	5. Boss Battle II! Now With More Blazing!

Bang rushed in headlong, his footsteps loudly striking the stone as he put his energy into moving forward. "HAH! FLYING KICK!" He shouted, leaping up into the air to kick Ky Kiske. Ky simply struck him across the leg with his sword as he landed, but to his surprise, Bang didn't stop moving.

"TUMBLING SHOULDER THROW!" Bang shouted his attack again, rising up from the ground almost as quickly as he landed and grabbing Ky by his weapon arm and shoulder, and he tossed him over his own hip. "DROPPING AXE KICK!" Ky rolled out of the way as Bang's foot hit the stone so hard it actually cracked a little. "Are you ready to give up now, evildoer?" He shouted as Ky recovered from his ukemi.

"Do you always shout the names of your attacks like this?" Ky asked.

"What's the matter, jealous?" Bang struck a pose and continued to talk as Ky muttered something to himself. "You should know that intimidation is a key tenet of our—GAAAH!" Bang found himself in horrible pain and looked back at the blonde-haired soldier to find his blade covered in a strange bluish electricity. He wasn't sure what was more shocking: the energy itself, or the fact that he could see it.

"I didn't want to use this against a clown like you, but you leave me no choice!" Ky growled and went went on the offensive, swinging his sword overhead to bring it down on Bang's head. Bang blocked the strike with his own gauntlets and countered with a low kick that slipped past Jin's guard, followed by a knee strike to the face.

"Is that all you got, Jin?" Bang shouted, "I expected more from a soldier of the NOL, but I guess even the greatest of the Librarium would be no match for…GAH!" Bang winced as he was shocked again, much harder this time. Ky was wiping some of the blood off of his face as his sword glowed with electricity again. Maybe this idiot was smarter than he looked: his comments were already getting under Ky's skin and making him miss the obvious cues Bang threw at him.

"Enough!" He shouted, "This ends now!"

"You're right Jin, you've spent too much time talking!" Bang struck another dramatic pose. "Let's do this!"

The comment made Ky pause for a brief second to consider the inanity of it all, and then channeling as much electricity as he could through his sword, Ky swung it at Bang in hopes of frying what remained of his brain with 100,000 volts of electricity. Bang held his gauntlets in front of his face and yelled until flames appeared to spring from his arms and legs.

Bang actually seemed to smack away the magical lightning Ky channeled through the blade with his flaming limbs. The act surprised even Bang, but he didn't question it and continued moving forward. Meanwhile, Ky was panicking. Something wasn't right, the electricity was going wild and striking into various homes and shops lining the street. He never had this much trouble trying to control his own power before…okay, at least not recently. The few people who were still around the area were trying to run away before the voltage struck them.

Ky intentionally released his hold over the magic so as not to hurt any innocents and immediately felt fatigue rush up to meet him. He began to slacken his posture and was about to ask Bang to do the same, but Bang was so caught up in the moment he just ran forward and charged right into him. Jin lost his grip on his Fuuraiken as Bang prepared an uppercut.

"Now you face my ultimate combo!" Bang shouted as his flaming fist connected with Ky's chest, "One I've prepared just for you!" Ky lost his breath as he found himself sailing up into the air. A fist connected with his back, a foot smacked into his back, an elbow hit him in the face, all of them from Bang, all of them on fire, and all moving so fast he couldn't keep track of them. "Try and freeze your way out of this one, Jin Kisaragi!"

_Freeze? Did he not notice the electricity coming out of my sword? _

"FLAMING PHOENIX FINISHER!" Bang grabbed him with his flaming gauntlets as he started to fall from the air and Ky realized that he was the one closest to the bottom. "BANG'S BLAZING FURY DROP!" Ky took advantage of the pause in Bang's speed to rotate the two of them onto his side. Out of everything that happened over his career, Ky Kiske would be damned if this loudmouthed ninja was going to be the one who had ended his life.

They landed on their sides on the stone road with a loud crash, followed by a bit of smoke. Ky and Bang's clothes and skin had burn marks and bruises from head to toe, and Ky's sword was lying on the ground a few meters away.

"M…Medic." Ky gasped on instinct.

"Damn…should've tested the Blazing Fury Drop out a little more." Bang growled as well. The two of them were still tightly clenched against each other, but had expended too much energy trying to defeat each other and were still suspicious of loosening their grip on their opponent.

"How about we call this one a draw?" Jin asked. "You don't burn me, I don't shock you."

"Shock? Why don't you use freezing magic?"

"What do you mean?"

"The evil Jin Kisaragi…he froze my master in a block of ice. You can't possibly be him."

"You goddamned idiot." Ky growled, "I nearly died because you made a mistake?"

"Not my fault you can't control your own magic powers…if only there were some way…" A lightbulb suddenly switched on in Bang's head, "Wait a minute, perhaps my sweet Miss Litchi can help you out!"

"Who?"

"Miss Litchi, my girlfriend!"

"You have a girlfriend?"

"Yes!"

"You?"

"Yes!" Bang also muttered "_soon, anyway"_ under his breath, but Ky didn't catch that.

"Oh Lord take me now." Ky Kiske lost consciousness as Bang broke his grip and stood up, invigorated by his new resolve to visit Litchi at her clinic in Oriental Town. He took Ky's last words as an invitation and picked him up, then carried him away.

"Miss Litchi, today is the day you will see my compassionate side!" He shouted to himself, though the people lining the street heard it and had no clue what he meant. "For I, Bang Shishigami, will even help a fallen enemy in a time of need!"

* * *

Meanwhile, back at the fight scene that Bang had run from, Rachel shifted into view with her two familiars close by. She glanced around at the carnage that had befallen this relatively lower-class neighborhood, with its stone-laid streets and inefficient, small houses, and the people who either looked depressed or afraid of the events that had just occurred. She took a moment to examine the Fuuraiken blade that Ky had dropped from the fight.

"Hmm…properties similar to a Nox Nyctores," Rachel muttered to herself, "But it seems to be a rather stupid piece of metal, not nearly as strong. This crude impersonation seems to be styled in the form of a rather blunt stick with a sharp tip for thrusting as opposed to a true blade. I'm not sure why anyone would wield this thing in real combat."

"So then why should we bother with this worthless thing Mistress?" Gii asked as his small, plump, reddish form floated between Rachel's face and the sword on the ground. "Let someone else take care of it. I'm sure one of these stupid humans can…"

Rachel slapped Gii across the face. "Gii, when I want your input, I shall ask for it."

"Y-yes Mistress." Gii floated behind her.

"Somehow, this stupid piece of metal was able to interfere with the flow of magic in ways it should not have, as if it were playing with a different set of rules than the ones magic is forced to here."

"Hey little girl," A worker spoke to Rachel from the side, but she didn't bother acknowledging him. "You should probably leave, this is a dangerous place."

"Indeed, and it will become more dangerous soon." Rachel said as she ordered her familiar Nago to pick up the blade. "In fact, if history repeats itself yet again, Kagutsuchi will once again become a battleground for the Azure Grimoire."

"Come on little girl," the man ignored her, "Where are your parents? I'm sure they're worried sick about you."

Rachel looked up at the tall man for a moment and sized him up. She could easily inflict all manner of pain or pleasure upon this poor drone, but it wouldn't do much to relieve her boredom. She had other people to play with now, and a strange weapon that needed to be examined further. Instead, she decided to leave him with a cryptic warning, "The currents of time and space may have changed, but if this spin on the wheel of fate simply continues as before, then I suggest you spend the next few days doing whatever it is you pitiful peasants do for fun."

"Pitiful peasant?" The man gasped. "Listen here you little…"

Before he could finish that sentence, Rachel and her familiars had vanished from the scene, along with the blade. The only signs left of battle were the smashed street and the injured NOL trooper who had somehow managed to escape further damage from the fight.


	6. Stumbling Around for Answers

Noel scrubbed herself down with soap as she let her thoughts drift along with the steam in the shower. Sure, it was a small little bathroom in a split-level house on the upper-level side of Kagutsuchi, but it worked for what she needed to do. She was rather surprised that Hazama or the NOL could afford to keep a house like this, even though Hazama had told her that the Intelligence Division had safe-houses like this one in all of the Hierarchical Cities for business reasons. Noel didn't quite care though, as long as she got a chance to scrub herself clean of the fight.

Her thoughts were interrupted a moment later when the door to the bathroom opened and Hazama came in with a towel and a change of fresh clothes, neatly folded, and placed them on the sink without saying a word. He smiled at Noel briefly before walking away and closing the door behind him. Noel was a bit shocked that he saw her completely naked but for the steam on the glass, but also bewildered because she had no idea what his reaction had meant. Was he interested in her? Did he harbor feelings towards her? Or was he just there to bring her new clothes when she finished her shower and nothing more?

These thoughts spun around in her head for a few minutes until the hot water started to run out. Noel decided to file it away for later, and she turned off the water, stepped out of the shower, dried herself off and put on the new clothes. She was surprised that they fit her perfectly. When she asked Hazama about it a moment later, his only answer was, "It's in the file." It didn't make her feel any less weird about the situation. She didn't know much about Hazama other than what he told her: He was the Chief of the NOL's Intelligence Branch. He technically held the rank of Captain, but didn't quite follow the same command structure of the Military Branch, and insisted she simply refer to him as "Hazama." He rarely seemed to walk anywhere without that black fedora covering his head and he usually seemed to carry an upbeat attitude around him. Noel couldn't figure out why.

"Ah yes, your assignment." Hazama handed her a folder. "As you can see, finding Major Jin Kisaragi should be your top priority, but there is another matter we would like you to attend to while you are here."

"What would that be?" Noel asked, flipping through the folder. The name on the files and the photos contained within looked familiar to her.

"You might recognize him," Hazama replied, "he is currently working as one of our operatives feeding us information on the dealings of Sector Seven."

_Colton Black_. The name popped up in Noel's brain. One of the few people she knew who took gunfighting to an art form, and the one who briefly tried to train her in the art of what he called gun-kata. But why would he be inside Sector Seven?

"Believe it or not, he specifically asked for your presence to give us some more intelligence on their actions. You can meet him at this address." Hazama tapped his finger on the inside of the folder.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Take note of what he says, and then tell me everything. While you are working on that, I will be keeping an ear to the ground for any more info about Major Kisaragi. We'll meet back at this house tomorrow, but if you feel you are in danger before then, push this little panic button here," Hazama handed her a tiny, square cracker-shaped device, "and I'll try to rectify the situation as best as I can."

* * *

In a brightly-lit lab somewhere, a half-human, half-cat woman instinctively reached for another lollipop sitting in the mug on her desk while she kept her eyes peeled to the monitor in front of her. Her hand dangled in midair for a moment, but she finally grasped one of them. She made a mental note to order one of the underlings to grab another giant bag of tiny lollipops for her later, but now it was time for science.

Something had gone wrong when they were testing out the warp nodes her friends in Sector Seven had placed earlier around Kagutsuchi, the ones that would supposedly bring back the legendary Hero known as Hakumen so that he could be studied further. She thought that it would work when they were able to successfully contact Hakumen as he was trapped in the Edge, and he responded. Okay, he didn't quite like the idea, but he seemed to accept that she would bring him back. And the teleportation device seemed to work as well.

The problem was what appeared in the confinement cell was not Hakumen. Unless Hakumen somehow turned into a strange young angel girl with a tail and heterochromatic wings, then someone was seriously going to have to revise the story of the Six Heroes who defeated the Black Beast all those years ago. But this new girl who showed up presented another mystery, one that did not appear entirely human. Possibly some sort of genetic experiment? Maybe the NOL's awful attempt at aping the Anti-Sankishin Unit? Or an entirely new subspecies of human that had appeared on the planet? The scientist was a bit ticked that Hakumen seemed to disappear from view, but at the same time this new angel girl lying asleep in the containment cell gave her new mysteries to solve, and that got the juices in her brain flowing.

"Kokonoe, are you there?" A voice crackled through the speaker with a bit of static. "Kokonoe? I've found one of the nodes…it appears to have been slightly damaged."

"How damaged, Tager?" Kokonoe replied as she continued to roll the lollipop around in her mouth. "The code here seems fine."

"I think it might have to do with the proximity of the components. When we siphoned power from the area in order to fuel the Substantiation Driver Effect, some of the components in the node itself seem to have overheated and melted under the strain. It's a mess right now"

Kokonoe bit down hard on the lollipop, cracking it in half. "Dammit, figures that those idiots in the field can't get the right parts we ask them to get."

"Should I repair the device?"

"No, just bring it back here. We don't want them to be discovered by the Library."

"Are you sure?"

"Despite what you might think, Tager, the Substantiation Driver Effect worked, just not the way we intended." Kokonoe gestured over to the sleeping angelic girl in the containment cell, as if Tager could see her body, "Apparently, we pulled something else from the Edge, just not Hakumen."

"Then who? Or what?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out. For now, just grab the node and bring it back here."

"Yes ma'am."

Having switched off her link to Tager, Kokonoe dialed another number on her office phone and immediately interrupted the poor intern who answered the phone. "Hey, it's Kokonoe, I need you to run down to the market and pick me up another bag of lollipops…don't ask questions, just do it!"

* * *

Tager grabbed the node hidden in the alleyway of a rather shoddy, lower-class pub, ignoring the squishing sounds under his feet as he placed the device in a black canvas bag. He did wonder what Kokonoe meant before she disconnected. What did they manage to capture if not the legendary Hero known as Hakumen?

As he planned to walk away with the bag, the side door of the pub opened and a pair of drunk men stumbled out. One blonde-haired man with a Union Jack shirt on was engaged in a drunken rendition of "God Save the Queen," while his white-haired comrade in a suit was trying to interrupt with "God Bless America." It looked rather surreal, especially since it was a bit too early in the day for the pub to be open or for anyone to be this drunk, unless you counted the self-pitying unemployed or the squatters who sometimes festered in vacant houses around the lower-class neighborhoods of Kagutsuchi.

"Heeeeeey!" One of the drunk men called out to him. The white-haired guy. "Heeeeeeey Potemkin! You heard the news man? We're gonna win this election!"

"Look at him!" The blonde man spoke up this time, "Looks like 'e fell into a vat 'o tomato juice, dunnit?"

"Holy shit! You're right!" The two burst out into laughter as Tager shook his head and tried to ignore them as he continued walking out of the alley. He had no idea what that man meant by calling him Potemkin.

"C'mon man," The white haired man zipped in front of him with surprisingly-fast speed. "You say you're gonna support my campaign for President, you can't just bail man. There's cameras, there's publicity, there's…" The man stopped and looked out at the poorly-kept street. "Hey Axl, what the hell happened here?"

"Aw bloody hell," the English-accented man replied as he zipped underneath Tager to join his friend, "Don't tell me it happened again."

"What happened?"

"Time travel, Chipp. Fuckin' time travel again! I swear, the Lord's fuckin wit me these days." Axl banged his fist on the wall even as the booze he had consumed began to start aching his brain, "I swear I'm never entering another shitty pub again. Isss like everytime I do ah…I keep getting thrown into the bloody future!"

"This is still Earth, though, right? I mean, someone's gotta know." The white-haired man called Chipp turned back to face Tager, "This is Earth, right Potemkin? I don't know what the hell turned you all red, but you can help us out?"

"I don't know who or what this Potemkin is, but you're in my way." Tager replied. "Get out of my sight."

"C'mon Potemkin…isss us, yer ol' mates Axl 'n Chipp!" Axl's speech was starting to slur. "You were with us at the campaign rally, remember?"

"I don't have time to play your stupid drunk game." Tager clenched his fists. "One last warning, get out of my way or there will be serious consequences."

"Oh…" Chipp looked downcast, "I didn't realize you thought that way."

"Guess Zepp's still got their dick up yer ass?" Axl and Chipp both laughed longer than they should have. Tager was tired of these drunk people, and decided that no one was going to miss these two. He gently put the canvas bag with the node down, and switched his systems into battle mode.

"Okay okay, joke's over. C'mon Potemkin." Chipp said.

"You should have run when you had the chance." Tager charged up the magnetic coils built into his arms, "I just had one simple task to accomplish here, and you just had to make it more complicated. Now I'm going to have to make you suffer for it."

"Wassup, mate?" Axl asked, "C'mon, I didn't mean to say that you liked taking it up the ass!"

Tager brought a glowing fist down to the ground. Hard. The corners of the nearby buildings were blown inward in as the seismic pressure on the ground combined with the charged magnetic coils repelling any metal in close proximity nearby. This included the weapons that Axl and Chipp had each stashed on their person beforehand, thus sending them flying into the street.

Without another word, Tager retrieved the bag and went on his way, while Chipp and Axl were fading in and out of consciousness with the mixture of alcohol and lack of sleep fighting against the adrenaline and survival instincts kicking in.

"I know Potemkin's gotten 'imself modded, but I don't remember that much." Axl spoke, "Was he always that knackered in the head?"

"We should follow him. He might at least know where the hell we are."

"Fuck him. He doesn't want to party, we should just let the bastard Potemkin go."

"He's not Potemkin. He looks and sounds different."

"How the hell do you know that?"

"Because I can think a little better now that the alcohol left my body after that last hit."

Axl sniffed the air for a second, then winced. "Gross, mate. You should probably get some new clothes while yer at it."

"Yeah…I wonder if they have a dry-cleaning store in the future."


	7. No, seriously, what do you mean?

Noel knocked on the door twice and waited. She felt a bit uncomfortable being out here all alone, with nothing but her cap, her cape, and her guns to keep her company. She was tempted to push the "panic button" that Hazama had given her, just for reassurance that it worked, but Hazama would probably look down on her for doing that. Besides, he trusted she could do this job quite easily, just ask Colton a few questions and get back to the safehouse when she was done. Simple right? But what if he thought she was spying on him? What if he didn't like her anymore? What if…

The door opened a crack and a gruff male voice grunted from behind it. Noel flinched a bit, but tried to keep herself calm.

"Oh, it's you." The man spoke, "What do you want?"

"Colton…Colton Black?"

"Who wants to know?"

"It's me, Noel Vermillion." The man said nothing in response, and Noel couldn't detect any movement either. "Remember from the Academy? You taught an elective class on gun-kata?"

"Gun-kata?" Colton snickered for a bit. "Everyone knows that style is bullshit."

"What? No! No sir, you taught me…"

"What do you want, an autograph or something? Stop wasting my time." The door closed suddenly. Noel wasn't sure if she was more scared or angry that Colton had just blown her off. She couldn't believe it at all. But she didn't come here to simply be turned away, so she knocked on the door a few more times. The door finally opened another crack, and Colton's gruff voice treated her like some stray dog who just took a dump on his doorstep. "What the hell are you still doing here, kid? Go! Shoo! Get lost!"

Noel took a deep breath and then said in a firm voice, "I'm here on a mission from the NOL's Intelligence Department."

"Intelligence?" Colton asked her, his voice a little less condescending, "What the hell are you doing there? I thought you were gonna be a military girl."

"It's a temporary assignment. Now please open up, I have a few questions to ask you."

"You, or the Intelligence Division?"

Noel looked behind herself, as if she expected Hazama to appear there, but she saw nothing more than a few upper-class citizens of Kagutsuchi walking around. "Just me."

The man grunted again from behind the door. Then after a few seconds, he closed the door, unlatched the safety bolt, and opened the door back up. "Come inside kid," Colton said."Let's have a little chat."

"What do you mean, chat?"

"Exactly what I said." Colton gestured to the inside of the house, "A quick chat."

"Mr. Black…when's the last time you had that floor cleaned?"

"What? Oh yeah, been meaning to do something about those stains. I keep forgetting that it's not like my time at the Academy when some cadet would have the duty of…" Colton looked up into Noel's distraught face, "Bad memories huh? Well, _c'est la vie_ and all that."

"What does _c'est la vie_ mean?"

"That's life. So, you coming inside now, or should I just go back to my previous business?"

Noel sighed. "Sure, I'll come in." She had to remind herself that it was part of the mission, and that maybe she could find out why this Colton Black seemed a lot different from the officer she had learned from back at the Academy. Still, for an upper-class domicile, it seemed rather unkempt on the inside. Quite a few shelves and tables had dust visibly clinging onto the surface, showing a long period of misuse. Stains of a few different colors appeared on the carpeting that took up most of the floor.

In the kitchen, Colton was pouring himself a drink while Noel stared at him with her mouth open.

"Mr. Black!"

"What, you want a drink too?" Colton raised his glass full of liquid. "Rum and Coke, keeps you awake and takes the pain away, if only for a brief moment."

"Of course not!"

"Your loss." Colton shrugged his shoulders, then proceeded to down half the glass. "So tell me Noel, what does the Intelligence Division want with an old, retired, cynical drunkard like me? You think they'd prefer someone who isn't a goddamned idiot."

"What happened to you, Mr. Black?"

"What happened? Magic happened, that's what. Haven't you heard? Bullets are useless now against anyone with a half-decent Barrier Ars Magus strapped to their body. Even the Library has been shifting most of its elite troops towards old-fashioned melee weaponry to break through these barriers." Colton finished off his drink and then slammed the glass on the table. "Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you stuck with my class on gun-kata, but you wasted your time. No one cares about guns anymore."

"You're wrong!" Noel shouted, "It was thanks to your teachings that I managed to arrest a pirate earlier today!"

"A pirate, huh?"

"Yes! A real pirate! With that evil look in his eyes, that weird sword technique, and those hands that threatened to…to…" Noel tried to think of the correct expression. "…to ruin my innocence!"

Colton suddenly burst out into laughter. "Wow kid, you're wound up tighter than the Imperator's cat. Here, try this, it'll loosen ya up." Colton poured a different drink in a second glass and slid it across the table to Noel.

"Mr. Black, about that information…"

"You finish that glass, I'll tell you everything you need to know."

* * *

Sol leaned against a wall as he took a few deep breaths. He had been trying to find that cat who stole his lunch for awhile now, if only because it might hold some answers about what this Kagutsuchi place was. Unfortunately, he was still hungry, and people didn't seem to recognize World Dollars as true currency here, so it made things a bit difficult.

Sol looked up to try and get his bearings. The only landmarks in the area were a bunch of sewer pipes, but otherwise it was pretty dark in this area, save for some sunlight that streaked through cracks in the ceiling. What was this place? Some kind of water treatment plant? Why would they put one all the way down here without a visible way out? Where were all the people? Even that one map he borrowed from a tourist stand back in Orient Town didn't seem to list the location of this place.

Even though he was tired, hungry, and a little pissed off, Sol knew he was going to get nothing accomplished down here, but then something happened: he felt something tugging at his leg. He tried walking out of it, but that same entity started dragging him in as a black mass slowly grew around his feet.

"What the hell?" Sol unsheathed his sword, the Fuuenken, and started cutting the strange substance off of his feet with small strokes. However, the mass kept growing. Drawing magic power from his weapon, he channeled a flame around the blade, and then plunged it into the mass at his feet. The black mass slid away and Sol could almost swear he heard something scream. "First cat-people, now semi-intelligent black goo?" Sol wondered aloud, "This place is getting crazy." Sol planned to go move forward but then saw an even bigger mass of black goo blocking his path, this time with a plain white mask that seemed to act as a face.

Sol was even more perplexed when he heard strange sounds coming from the mass, as if someone was speaking in disjointed syllables. "An…sh…n't…poss…what…no…hap…ex…is…"

"Look, I'm getting a little tired of this." Sol pointed his sword at the mass, "You tell me right now what the hell is going on, or I'm cutting a path through you."

"Li…boy…pl…th…he…ch…is…but…"

"Can you speak? What the hell are you muttering?"

"Mat…is…words…in…sit…shun…? No…ha…not…wis"

"Fine, your loss."

"Eat...eat you…see if…or sat…"

Sol again channeled the flame into his Fuuenken, and this time caused magical fire to shoot up from the ground underneath the masked black blob. The flames struck the black mass and caused it to scream. Then the masked blob leaped into the air, where Sol lost sight of it in the shadows of the piping.

"Where did you go?" Sol tried to find it, but the damn thing had vanished from sight. Sol shrugged his shoulders and prepared to leave thinking the strange being had lost interest in him. Then a large, yellowish spike came out of nowhere and slashed him across the shoulder of his weapon arm.

"Pointlesspointlesspointlesspointless…." The mass whispered out loud before screeching in what appeared to be some form of demented laughter. Sol grimaced from the pain but continued looking for the thing. Another yellowish spike came forward, but his guard was slower this time. He blocked it, but didn't expect a second one to appear right underneath it and stab him in the chest.

Sol switched the sword to his undamaged chest, but the pain in his chest and shoulder did not feel particularly good, and if not for his Gear traits he probably wouldn't have survived. He decided to create some light in the area to find the black mass and channeled another flame through his Fuuenken, but something weird happened. The flame shot out from the sword in all directions, accidentally hitting the black mass in the process.

"WAAAAAAAASTE!" It shouted as it was now covered in magical flame, "EV…TH…TOUCH…WAAAAASTE!"

"Shut up!" Sol shouted, bringing his sword up to finish the thing off again, and cut through it.

"NOT…OV…NEV…CA…ANY…AAAAAA!" The black mass was cut in two as the bottom half sunk to the floor and the top half with the face mask floated up in the air, screaming until it disappeared.

Sol suddenly fell to the ground, incredibly fatigued. _Dammit, I used too much power. How did that happen?_ He tried to stand up, but even doing that was difficult. Something went wrong when he called upon the power of the Fuuenken to light up the area, and he lost control of the magic. "Can't fall asleep, not here." Sol growled out loud, mostly for his own benefit, "That thing might come back. Gotta find some kinda shelter…"

* * *

"Ugh, this place reeks of filth." Rachel spoke, disgruntled, as she shifted into the area. "I can't imagine why anyone would want to go down here. Do the peasantry actually like living in this squalor?"

Rachel took a few steps forward through the muck of the sewers until she found what she was searching for: another crude imitation of a Nox Nyctores that didn't belong in this world. This particular one was a lot shorter than the first blade, and was being held by a dirty man who seemed to be sleeping on the floor. "Hmph, sleeping in this place? I don't know how anyone could do it."

"That's peasantry for ya, mistress." Her cat-like familiar Nago spoke, "Just like the job they were born to do, handle filth. They probably love sleeping in it."

"Nago, collect the blade from this man as well, we will study them later."

Nago warped into a cape around Rachel, and then focused itself into molding an arm big enough to collect the sword. Just as he was about to grab it, the man twitched his weapon arm and cut the familiar's appendage, causing Nago to retract back into the large cape form around Rachel. "OW! Mistress, he's hitting me!" Nago complained.

"Hands off my sword." Sol growled, "I've had enough of you creatures playing with me!"

"How rude." Rachel said, suddenly finding her nails a lot more important than the man in front of her, "I was merely trying to study a strange weapon, but it seems that weapon came attached to an alien specimen."

Sol didn't say anything else, but simply attacked out of anger. Rachel jumped into the air and easily lept out of Sol's range as the man tried channeling more magic through the Fuuenken. However, the act only drained his energy further.

"What's wrong, can't handle your power?" Rachel spoke as she balanced on top of a nearby pipe, "You really should rest up. If you use too much seithr, it will drive you quite mad."

"Shut up!" He channeled another flame into his blade, adrenaline keeping him from falling over, and lept up into the air to strike at Rachel, but something weird happened. He suddenly felt the wind resistance against his body a lot more than he normally would, especially considering that he was underground and there was very little natural wind flowing through here.

"George the Thirteenth." Rachel summoned a frog through a small rift, "I have need of your services now." As Sol missed the target and landed on the other side of the sewer, he saw what appeared to be a mechanical frog dropped right next to him. He thought the strange girl was taunting him.

Then the frog released a large burst of electricity, zapping him until he could no longer stand.

"Hmph, he was a difficult one to tame." Rachel told her familiars as she effortlessly floated to the ground with Nago's help. "But I must admit his spirit reminds me of another short-tempered rat from awhile ago. You think that buffoon would at least have the decency to write a letter once in awhile."

"Yeah, that Ragna guy doesn't think about your feelings!" Gii shouted.

"So what should we do with this one?" Rachel mused. "I could just take the sword, but there's something odd about this one. Something not quite human."

"What do you mean, not human?"

"He seems to have an awfully fast healing rate for someone who looks so unclean, but not exactly like that of a vampire." Rachel stepped over him. "I suppose I'll have to study them both further." She snapped her fingers in the air twice. "Valkenhayn?"

Rachel's butler Valkenhayn appeared out of nowhere, as seemed to be his custom, "You called for me, madam?"

"Please escort this man back home, but separate him from his sword and deliver it to me. Be wary, he may wake up very soon."

"Certainly, madam Rachel."

"And when you're finished with him, I want you to get me a new pair of shoes. These ones are filthy enough from walking in this place."

"Of course."

Rachel disappeared from view along with her familiars and her frog George XIII, and Valkenhayn sighed. "Looks like I have to clean up after her mess again. Sometimes I wonder why I took this job." Valkenhayn grabbed Sol by the back of the neck with one hand and ripped his sword free with another. "I suppose it's your fault for just being in the wrong place when Rachel happened to get bored." He said sarcastically to the downed Sol. "She's like that, you know."

"What happened?" Valkenhayn thought he heard the tired warrior grumble as he slung him over his shoulder, "How did I become so weak?"

Valkenhayn declined to answer him as he shifted back to the mansion with Sol and sword in tow.


	8. Lucid dreams are difficult to remember

_Sol wasn't entirely sure where he was at that moment, other than somewhere in that vast expanse between sleep and wake, the place where dreams often take their lucid, visual form. At least, he assumed it was a dream, because if this strange figure with a greenish tint and a clownish smile was supposed to scare him, it wasn't doing a very good job._

"_Ahhh, I wonder if you'll be able to change anything?"_

_The entity spoke. Sol wasn't ready to call it a person. More like some kind of high-spirited ghost-thing. Either way, something about this entity's smile just got on Sol's nerves._

"_Just wanna have a chat with you, interloper. No need to get so worked up, though even if you were, you don't seem to be in a position to do much about it." _

"_What do you want?"_

"_Well, let's just say I have a business proposition for you: There's a rather ill-tempered dumbass by the name of Ragna the Bloodedge. Heard of him? White hair, heterochromatic eyes, red coat, carries a giant butcher knife of a sword around? Didn't think so. After all, you're not from around here, right? You couldn't last a few seconds against that shitty vampire girl, what makes me think you can beat him? I guess it doesn't really matter."_

_Sol tried to grab the ghost-thing, but his hand went right through its neck._

"_Ah, perhaps you both have something in common after all!" He spoke in a jovial, high-pitched tone, as if this was all an amusing joke to him. "Anyways, within his right arm, he holds a fragment of the Azure Grimoire. I need you to bring that arm into the main Library of Kagutsuchi."_

"_Why should I help you?" Ragna snarled. "Every goddamn creature I've run across ever since I somehow ended up here has tried to eat me or kill me, how are you any different?"_

"_Oh right, I suppose you're not the type of goody two-shoes who would just do it out of the kindness of his heart. Well, if you can bring me what I ask, I can use the power of the Grimoire to bring you back home to wherever it is you come from."_

"_Do you still need it attached to this Ragna guy?"_

_The ghost actually laughed at that statement, "Oh, I already like your style, Mr. Bad Guy. To answer your question, I suppose it doesn't really matter whether or not Ragna is still attached to that arm, so long as you can bring it down to the lowest level of the Library. Do this, and I will be able to find you a way back home."_

"_And if I refuse?"_

"_Then you'll have to find a way back on your own. And good luck with that."_

"_How do I even know I can trust you?"_

"_You don't, but if you are not up to the task, I can always find someone else. Kagutsuchi is a big city, full of people far less curious than you and willing to do it for less. You know what they say about curiosity, don't you?"_

"_It killed the cat?"_

"_No, I killed the cat. It just happened to be named Curiosity the day I did it." The ghost laughed out loud again. "But it's a decision I leave up to you, interloper. You can accept my offer, or you can be an idiot and decline. Either way, I'm getting what I want. I'm just offering you the opportunity to benefit as well."_

_

* * *

  
_

"Miss Litchi!" Bang shouted as he kicked open the door with much force, "I, Bang Shishigami, have come to show you my compassionate need for…"

An eerie silence followed.

"Huh, I thought she would be in here…where could she have gone?"

"BURGLAR!" Bang heard a girl scream behind him, and then felt a large blunt impact against the back of his skull, knocking him out for a brief moment. "What did you do to my door?"

"Doctor! Calm down!" Another female voice cried out just as Bang drifted into unconsciousness, "They're probably just new patients!"

"You put the sign up that said we'd be back in five minutes, didn't you Linhua?"

"Oh yeah, I…sorry about that Doctor Ling."

"Guess it can't be helped." Litchi said, sending her Matenbou staff back to the pocket dimension from whence it came before looking at the two men lying on the ground. "Who do we have here? These two look vaguely familiar."

"I say we drag in the blonde one first." Linhua said as she grabbed the limp form of Ky Kiske by the arms. "At least he's kind of cute. Who's the other one?"

Litchi turned the supposed burglar over until she could see his face. _It's him again? I could swear I took out a restraining order on that freak._ Litchi briefly contemplated letting him lie on the doorstep as she helped Linhua carry the young blonde man onto a table. _Damned Hippocratic Oath_. "Okay Linhua, start taking off this guy's clothes, looks like he's got some serious burns that will leave big scars if we don't act fast."

"What about the other guy?"

"Don't worry, I'm sure he'll be fine." Litchi grabbed one of Bang's arms and slowly dragged him in, grunting in exertion. The man was heavier than he looked.

"Doctor, this man's saying something!" Litchi dropped Bang's arm next to a chair and shut the door as she ran over to the table.

"_Dizzy, Dizzy__, o__ù êtes-vous? J'ai essayé de te sauverai de lui__. Où pourriez-vous être Dizzy?"_

"What's he saying?" Litchi asked, "It sounds like French."

"I don't know, I never studied that language," Linhua said, "but he keeps saying dizzy."

"Well, at least he's conscious."

"_Ai-je réussir ou ai-je fait juste empirer les choses? Dites-moi Dizzy…"_

"Can you hear me?" Litchi asked the blonde man, "Can you tell me your name? Why do you keep saying dizzy? Are you feeling dizzy right now?" Litchi snapped on some rubber gloves quickly and grabbed a tiny flashlight with one hand as she opened one of Ky's eyes with another. "Linhua, keep his head steady. If he took a blow to the head, we don't want it getting worse."

Linhua thought about pointing out the fact that the Doctor had just done that to Bang Shishigami with a magically-summoned staff, but she was too caught up in the moment to argue.

"Speak to me, tell me your name if you can hear me."

"Who am I?" Ky mumbled as his words switched back to English, "I'm Ky Kiske, who are you?"

"Call me Doctor Ling, and you're going to be all right. Just tell me what happened."

"_Un gran…_a big accident."

"What was this accident? How did you get all these burn marks on your clothes and skin?"

"I fought a man…called himself Bang or something. Carried a giant nail on his back."

Litchi shot the unconscious Bang Shishigami a dirty look, then turned back to Ky. "Don't worry, we'll get you fixed up in no time. You mentioned something about Dizzy?"

"Dizzy?" Ky's eyes opened up wide as he tried to sit up on the bed. "Where is she? Is she…" Ky slapped a hand to his head as he suddenly felt a strong rush of vertigo.

"Careful!" Linhua shouted, "You're in no condition to move right now."

"I have to find her." Ky mumbled. "I was supposed to be the one to protect her from That Man, and then something happened. A big flash of light, some form of magic I hadn't seen before, and everyone, everyone was…"

"Ow, what happened?" Bang rubbed the back of his head as he stood up. "I think someone tried to ambush me as I came in here. Are you alright, Miss Litchi?"

"Bang, what are you doing?" Litchi pointed an accusatory finger at him, "Did you beat up this man?"

"My sweet Miss Litchi, how you show such skill for treating the wounded, even if they are an enemy! Such beautiful compassion, such wonderful skill, I am honored to…"

Litchi cocked an eyebrow, "Are you making fun of me?"

"Of course not Miss Litchi, I simply wished to tell you that…"

Litchi grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled down instructions for Bang to be given a giant jar worth of acetaminophen. "Here, just take this to the nearest pharmacy and get out of here. You'll be fine."

"But Miss Litchi…"

"I have other patients with real problems to attend to! Now get out!"

"But…"

"Out! Out! Out!" Litchi shoved Bang out the door and slammed it shut.

Bang took a look at the doctor's prescription he was handed, and then spoke to the closed door of Litchi's health clinic. "Oh Miss Litchi, I understand you are busy, and do not worry, your secret love note will not go unnoticed! I shall return another day and sweep you off your feet! For I, Bang Shishigami, believe it is written in the stars themselves that we are meant to be together!"

Across the street, a young boy tugged on his mom's skirt and asked her, "Mommy, why is that old scruffy man yelling at a door?"

The mom had no answer.

* * *

Somewhere on the higher levels of Kagutsuchi, Noel had finished the drink that her former mentor had given her, and then another, and then another.

"Wow…guess you've never had that much to drink in your life have you?" Colton mused.

"SHUT UP!" Noel shouted as she finished off a third rum and coke, "I dunno why anyone drinks this stuff, makes your head all fuzzy."

"Kid, you've had enough."

"Did I ever tell you that time…" Noel sniffed, her face was red and she seemed on the verge of tears. "There was this cute boy in my class, and I spent days trying to think of the right thing to say to him…"

"Noel, calm down."

"…and you know what he said? He said, 'oh sorry, I didn't know you were a girl.' NOT A GIRL! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU CALL THESE?" She grabbed her own chest, "Are these just…are they not good enough for..." Noel mumbled something incomprehensible, and then began crying.

Colton Black immediately dumped out whatever beverage he had left in his shot glass. "C'mon kid, let's get you over to the couch."

"I just wanted to be a good girl, a good soldier." She mumbled as Colton led her over to a couch, "Why did you leave the Academy, Mr. Black? Why did that boy ignore me? Size doesn't matter right? Right?"

Colton learned a long time ago that trying to argue with a drunk person was an exercise in futility, so he just nodded and led her to the couch.

"See, I knew you would be nice like that." She giggled as Colton sighed. The girl was having more mood swings than an over-caffeinated six-year-old on a playground. "Thanks for everything you've done."

"Not a problem at all." Colton ran to the medicine cabinet in the bathroom and pulled out a small pill, then filled a paper cup full of water before returning to Noel. "Here, take this, you'll probably need it now."

"Thanks Mister Black." Noel said in a sing-song voice, "Mmmm…you're so kind." She swallowed the pill and washed it down, then promptly fell asleep on the couch.

Colton Black shook his head. It was times like this that he truly reviled Sector Seven, but considering his part in the project a long time ago he didn't exactly have the moral high ground. He just happened to be head of security in the experimental lab at the time when the Library used a space-based Nox Nyctores to cut off the head of the Ikaruga Federation, killing several of his colleagues. He just thanked whatever deity existed at the time that some of his friends managed to survive, including the body of the 12th Anti-Sankishin Core Unit, but the thought of the experiments that those damned scientists performed on that little girl disgusted him. He had no clue what happened to the other 11, nor did he know how they were making these units, but at least he was able to save this one from a similar fate. Leaving her on the doorstep of a high-class family seemed like the least he could do to make up for his own misfortune.

Colton wondered if he should tell Noel the truth when she woke up soon. He wondered if she even dreamed. _Hey, do robots dream of electric sheep?_ Someone asked him that question awhile ago, he could never figure out what it meant and just chalked it up to some sort of new-age koan. Instead, he walked into his study and looked at his cork board. Several index cards with notes scribbled on them were thumbtacked onto the board. Photos and long pieces of string connected the various bits of information he had picked up working for Sector Seven and then as a double agent for the Library. There was some sort of conspiracy afoot within the highest levels of the Library, and Colton had a feeling he was getting close. That could explain why that snake who ran the Intelligence Department decided to send someone after him. But why send Noel to question him? She wasn't skilled in interrogation at all, and it didn't make sense.

* * *

[A/N: French language written with help of Google Translate. I can do a modest Spanish translation, and even a tiny bit of Arabic, but I have not studied French. So if there were any errors in those few French sentences I apologize.]


	9. Split Personality? A Likely Excuse

"C'mon, mate. Can't you go any faster than this?" Axl tapped his foot on the sidewalk. "At this rate, we're going to lose that red giant."

"It'll go faster if you stop complaining." Chipp was darting from house to house, frantically looking for some kind of clothes currently drying on a clothesline. "Like hell I'm going to run around in these clothes after what they've been through."

"You mean after you messed them yourself?"

"Shut up." Chipp scoffed. "There's nothing here in my size, let's see if we can find something else."

"What about this see-through shirt?"

"Fuck you, I'm not wearing that thing."

"Hey, it's a little small, but I'm sure you can squeeze into it with this pair of jeans. Besides, not like you had great fashion sense back when you were fighting in the tournament. Remember that one time when..."

"I grew up since then, you dumbass."

The two of them kept sniping at each other verbally for another minute, when a window opened and a fat woman leaned out to yell at them, "Hey, those aren't your clothes! Get your filthy hands off them!"

Axl and Chipp each muttered a curseword, and then ran down the street. Axl carried the shirt and jeans off the clothesline with him as the woman ran outside with a broom in hand, yelling various obscenities as the two ran out of sight. The people who were on the street looked at them with wonder and amusement, wondering why two well-dressed men would be running away with casual clothes and chased by a woman with a broom.

After losing sight of the two thieves, the woman was about to run back home and call for help from a local NOL trooper, when she spotted a young blonde-haired man wearing one of their blue military outfits.

"Hey, excuse me, those men stole my clothes!" The woman shouted at him. "Please do something about them!"

The officer in question simply grunted in response. When the woman pressed him further, he smacked her in the face with the hilt of his sword. "Out of my way you worthless peon, I don't have time to deal with your problems."

"What? Who's your commanding officer? I would like to speak…"

The blonde-haired officer grabbed her by her shirt with one hand, "I _am _the commanding officer, and I do not care about your pathetic clothes. You want them so bad, get them yourself and stop wasting my time." With his weapon hand, he hit the woman directly in the solar plexus with the hilt of his sword and tossed her away. A small crowd of people had begun to gather around him to view the event, and the man said to them, "Does anyone else have a problem with me?"

"Y-you were the Hero of Ikaruga, weren't you?" An older man said to him. "We are loyal citizens of Kagutsuchi, and members of the Librarium! Why would you do such a thing? What possible reason do you have to harm an innocent woman who simply asked for your help?"

"Because she annoyed me," the Hero said as he took the sword out of its sheath and pointed it directly at the man who talked back to him. "Now if you want to keep your face, I suggest you stay out of my way." The man immediately felt a chill run through him, and wasn't sure if it was through fear or if the temperature in the area really was dropping fast. Either way, he didn't complain and neither did anyone else when the officer simply re-sheathed his sword and continued along his way.

The elderly man waited until he was out of earshot, and then said, "Jin Kisaragi…what would drive you to do such a thing? Do the horrors of war still linger within you?"

Jin didn't hear the man as he continued his trek towards the upper levels of Kagutsuchi. Someone in the NOL had sent him a memo that the infamous Ragna the Bloodedge would likely choose the main Library branch in Kagutsuchi as his next target. Of course his superiors didn't want him to go, buy they had no idea how important this was to him. So he took the initiative and set out for the Kagutsuchi Library on his own.

He would be damned if some bureaucrat would stand in the way of meeting with his dear brother.

________

"Hmph, took you long enough." Kokonoe muttered as she snatched the bag full of lollipops from the unfortunate intern selected to bring them to her. "Don't worry kid, you can keep the change. Now get out of here." The intern nodded his head and walked as fast as he could out the door of the lab. With that little problem solved, Kokonoe moved on to a bigger one: Trying to figure out the mystery of this strange, angelic girl who had appeared in the containment cell originally designed to hold Hakumen.

The girl didn't even flinch when Kokonoe had taken a blood sample from her earlier and sent its RNA structure around to some of Sector Seven's scientists for a quicker analysis. The only thing that returned was that it wasn't anything that could be found in their database: Not a human, a cat-person, a Nox Nyctores or even one of the Murakumo units they had developed with Patient Zero as their base. However, Kokonoe did start dreaming up ways she could incorporate this entity into developing Xi-14. Hopefully she wouldn't just disappear like the last two units. But that would come later.

"Seems our subject is waking from her beauty sleep." Kokonoe mused to herself as she saw the feed from the containment cell, "Might as well go ask her a few questions, like where the tail and those heterochromatic wings come from." Kokonoe stretched as she stood up from her chair, and then went to head to the other room when Iron Tager came in through the opposite door. Luckily the door was large enough to accomdate Tager's massive frame as he lumbered over to Kokonoe.

"Ah Tager, you found the node?"

"Yes."

"You didn't run into any trouble?"

"A couple of drunken idiots and some low-rank NOL soldiers, nothing I couldn't handle."

"Good to hear."

"The engineers are repairing the nodes as we speak. Hopefully we'll still be able to call back Hakumen from the Edge once they're finished."

"Let's hope so, but in the meantime I think I've found something just as interesting."

"What would that be?"

"Behind this door lies an entity that doesn't exist in our database at all. We know it has a humanoid form, but other than that not much."

"An experiment left over from the war?"

"It's possible. We're still analyzing the blood sample, but…ah, it seems she's woken up." Kokonoe flipped the switch as the door to the room with the cell slid open and stepped inside. "Let's go greet our sleeping beauty."

"I'll be right here." Tager said, noticing that the door to the cell was a bit too small for him to fit through.

Kokonoe walked over to the containment cell and tapped on the glass. "You awake? Good, I didn't know what affect the Substantiation Driver would have on lifeforms such as yourself." Kokonoe spoke to the girl in the cell. "So, you mind telling me your name? Maybe what those wings and tail are supposed to be good for? That would be a good start."

"My name is…" the girl grabbed her head, "Dizzy…"

"Well, I guess there would be some dizziness after we yanked you from the Edge." Kokonoe pulled out a small pad and pen from the pocket of her lab coat and scratched down some notes. "So what was your name again?"

"Dizzy."

"Yes, we've established that you're dizzy. What is your name?"

"Dizzy. That's what I'm called."

Kokonoe chewed on that thought for a second. "Good to see the trip gave you a sense of humor. Fine, Dizzy it is then."

Dizzy didn't respond to that, but instead asked the strange cat-person in front of her, "Who are you? And where is this?"

"My name is Kokonoe, and this is…well, I can't really tell you where it is."

"Why not?"

"It's a secret."

"Are you one of Ky's friends? Is he okay? He isn't hurt is he?"

"Ky?" Kokonoe scratched down some more notes on her pad. "Who or what is Ky?"

"He's a good friend, he tried to save me from That Man."

"What man?"

"That Man?"

Kokonoe stopped writing and just stared at Dizzy for a moment. "Kid, I'm a scientist, not a comedian. I don't have time for your stupid jokes. Just tell me the last thing you remember before waking up here."

"I was captured by some bad guys, and That Man appeared, said he'd found some kind of brand new magic."

"Magic?" Kokonoe cocked an eyebrow as she scribbled more notes, "Was it some kind of Armagus?"

Dizzy continued her tale at a fast pace, "But then Ky showed up in the room, he looked all tired, said That Man was just going to use me to resurrect the power of the Gears or something. Ky fought with That Man, and then…and then…"

"And then what?" Kokonoe watched as Dizzy started to sputter and babble incoherently, before finally letting out an unearthly growl that seemed several octaves deeper from her previous voice. Kokonoe's instincts kicked in, and she started running out of the room with notepad in hand as Dizzy started pounding the walls of the cage. The walls delivered a shock to Dizzy each time she pounded, and any normal person would have stopped, but something weird happened: Her dark-green wing suddenly transformed into what appeared to be a face, and the wing slowly covered most of her body, and then an arm extended out from that wing and smashed one of the containment cell's walls. However, a force field shimmered into place soon after.

"Come on, we built this thing to contain one of the Six Heroes, what chance do you have to escape from it?" Kokonoe spoke as she continued to watch as Dizzy with the heterochromatic wings continued pounding against the transparent wall. "Calm down, we can talk this over or you go to sleep again."

Eventually, the beast emerging from the dark green wing had shrunk back as Dizzy lay unconscious on the floor of the cell. After scratching down a few more notes on her pad, Kokonoe walked out of the room to see Tager standing directly outside with a worried look on his face.

"I thought you were under attack? I was afraid I would have to burst through the wall to save you."

"No, luckily the backup force field kicked in just in time. Damn creature tired itself out, and the low oxygen level in the cell certainly helped speed things up." Kokonoe shook her head, "Maybe we can use her genetic code for when we get the resources to work on Unit Xi-14, but I'll be damned if I'm letting this thing out of its cage anytime soon. It's certainly sentient enough to speak and listen in our language, but it seems to have the brainpower of a child. One minute it was joking with me, the next it lashed out in anger when it struggled to understand something."

"So what should we do?"

"For now? Wait until it wakes up, then maybe we can run some more physical tests, but this shouldn't take away from our aim of trying to capture Hakumen. Go call the boys in engineering and find out how long it will take to finish repairing those nodes, and then we'll try again to pull Hakumen into here."

"Why are you so concerned with Hakumen?"

"Because he has something I need." Kokonoe glared at Tager in a hostile manner.

"Is that it?"

"Unless you happen to know where I can find another Sankishin unit, yes."

"Will this cell even be able to contain his power?"

"Well, it proved itself against this strange little girl, hopefully it will be able to handle Hakumen."

"Hopefully? That doesn't sound like a very scientific conclusion."

"Until we can study more of this subject's abilities, hope is all we're going to get for now." Kokonoe exited the cell area and went back to her computer to transcribe some of her notes into a word processing program. Such a high operating budget and the higher-ups at Sector Seven still couldn't afford to buy her some of that smart paper that would do it automatically, how annoying. "Oh Tager, a message came in for you from upstairs…you've got another assignment."

"I do?"

"Yeah." Kokonoe swiveled around in her chair so that Tager could see the monitor with the message. "Just make sure to get a status report from our engineering crew, and then you can go."


	10. Careful not to trip over Memory Lane

Sol slowly opened his eyes and found himself staring at the bottom of a white canopy with fridges on the ends. He groaned out loudly as he tried to remember where he was but the name would not come to him. Something with a K in it. Maybe it was all a dream.

_But that doesn't explain why I'm in a bed right now._ Sol thought as he sat up and stretched himself out. The bedroom looked pretty upscale by Sol's standards: freshly-painted walls, Gothic-style light fixtures, paintings of people he didn't recognize. _If this is the afterlife, they could at least have given me some new clothes before I woke up. Maybe a hot babe too. I wonder if they have hot babes in Heaven? Considering half the nuns I ran into over the years, that's a low bet._

Looking down, he saw some blood-stained cloth wrapped around his chest as a crude bandage. _Okay, so I'm not dead. But that still doesn't explain where I am._

A moment later, the door to the bedroom opened and Sol pretended to be asleep on top of the bed, watching through narrow eyelids. A familiar figure entered the room with a plate of scrambled eggs. "Hello sir, I don't know if you're awake, but Madam Rachel has requested that I provide you with some nourishment."

He stopped for a moment, and Sol wondered why. The man looked quite similar to Slayer, even seemed to have a similar posture and manners, but his voice was different. Then he continued walking towards the side of the bed. "Personally, I was surprised that you could survive so long, considering all you went through, and my knowledge of battlefield medicine only goes so far. But she seemed intent on studying you and those new weapons. So here we are."

_Studying? What the hell does that mean?_ Sol waited until the man was close enough, then swung around and kicked at his head. The kick was powerful enough that it managed to shatter the plate in two, but the man only seemed disappointed as he grabbed Sol's leg with his other arm. "Really now, is that any way to greet someone offering you free food?" Sol felt the man's hand squeeze his leg with surprisingly strong force as he suppressed a groan. The man continued to talk in a measured tone, as if he was simply discussing the weather. "If it was up to me, I would have left you in that sewer, but milady has asked me to take care of you for the time being so I am doing my best not to strangle you right now. Do not make this any harder than it has to be." Valkenhayn tossed Sol's leg back onto the bed. Sol did not have the energy to make another attempt, nor did he have his sword to fight with.

"Valkenhayn, that will be enough for now." Sol and Valkenhayn both turned their attentions to the doorway where Rachel walked through with her familiars. "Get another plate of eggs, and be quick about it." Valkenhayn simply nodded and left the room to obey her request, leaving Rachel and her familiars alone in the room with Sol. "Well, we're alone. I suppose you want to take a swing at me?"

Sol was very tempted, but he didn't have the strength to do much more than sit up on the bed and listen to this girl.

"One thing you should learn, Mr…what should I call you anyway?"

"Sol."

"Well then, Mr. Sol."

"Just Sol."

"No last name?"

"Does it matter?"

Rachel simply shrugged her shoulders as her catlike familiar Nago morphed into the form of an easy chair, which she sat in, facing the bed. "Okay then, Sol, one thing you should learn is that there is always someone stronger than you. A second thing you should learn is that even a strange being such as yourself cannot go without food for too long, no matter how strong you are."

"Listen here, I've only been in this place for a short time. Everything and everyone I've come into contact with her has robbed me, threatened me, or tried to eat me. Why should I trust you?"

"Sol, if I wanted you dead, we wouldn't be having this conversation." Rachel rested her chin on her hand, showing him a sign of her own boredom. "I brought you here, because I thought you would be an interesting variable, one that could help save the world."

"Save the world?" Sol chuckled. "How long did it take you to come up with that line?"

"Don't be so full of yourself, you are not important alone, but perhaps in the grand scheme of things your assistance might help."

"So we're back to my last question, why should I trust you?"

"I'm giving you food and offering transport to anywhere you want to go once this situation is resolved."

"Great. Would you be willing to send me to France?"

"France? That place hasn't existed for over a century."

"What?" Sol was shocked. "Then where are we now?"

"At the moment, you are sitting in the guest bedroom of my house." Sol kept his mouth shut, but frowned, waiting for a better answer than that. "But if you want a little more detail about where you were previously, the sewer system in the Hierarchical City of Kagutsuchi."

"What's the year?"

"Well, currently the year is 2199, though after a few weeks it will probably be 2200. Have you seen the decorations they're putting up around the upper levels of the city? Quite a spectacle they plan to hold when the New Year begins." Rachel smiled and then continued, "As if any of it will matter by the end of tomorrow."

"You...you're fucking with me, aren't you? You can't be serious." Sol ground his palm into his own face and muttered, "Dammit, of all the possible ways that could have gone wrong."

"Well then tell me this: what is the last thing you remember before arriving in Kagutsuchi?"

* * *

After a little prodding, Sol reluctantly decided to divulge what he remembered doing before arriving in Kagutsuchi, if only to buy time while he thought of a plan.

It started wrung the answer out of a certain informant stupid enough to think that a few soldiers, even highly-skilled ones sent by the Post-War Administration Bureau, would be a match for him. Unlike those people, the informant felt no allegiance to the PWAB, and was grateful when Sol threw him some cash and sent him away.

Someone had managed to kidnap Dizzy from the Jellyfish Pirates, apparently without Johnny or the others noticing. Sol wasn't sure why, but the list of people with the ability to pull that off was big enough to fit on a sticky note. The informant pointed him in the direction of France, so he figured he would ask his old "friend" Ky Kiske for some more information.

He planned to head to an old church where the two of them were initiated into the Holy Order several years ago, and sent Ky a subtle message to warn him, but trouble found him in the city of Paris where assorted INTERPOL agents tried to arrest him the moment he arrived in the country.

* * *

"Post-War Administration Bureau? INTERPOL?" Rachel mused as Valkenhayn returned with another plate of eggs. "Sounds a bit like the Novus Orbis Librarium these days, the way you describe them."

"Hey, who's telling you the story?" Sol didn't move as the eggs were placed on the nightstand next to the bed. After Valkenhayn left, he scarfed them down in barely a minute using the ceramic fork the butler had left next to the plate.

"Where did you learn your manners, you barbarian?" Rachel asked as he ate, but he didn't answer. After finishing the eggs, Sol continued the story.

* * *

On one hand, Sol didn't quite want to cause a scene and attract more attention than he had. On the other hand, he was a bit ticked off that Ky had responded to his summons by sending agents to arrest him. Then one of them stepped forward and handed him a note handwritten by Ky, giving him directions to an office building elsewhere in the city and a small head start before INTERPOL would be forced to hunt him down. Sol thanked them by simply escaping the area and not killing them outright.

After locating and entering the office building, he felt a strange tick at the back of his mind, some sort of familiar sense that popped up when a Gear happened to be nearby. Dizzy was here, somewhere in the building, and Ky had left a trail for him to follow in the form of scorch marks, incapacitated guards and broken machinery. The questions in his head continued to grow as he followed the trail: Why would someone kidnap Dizzy? What purpose would it serve? And why was Ky suddenly so interested in her? He followed the stairs down and hoped that he would find the answers in the basement of the building.

* * *

Rachel frowned. "Well, this story sounds rather…fantastic so far, but you're leaving out so many details. Who are these people? What are Gears? Who is this Ky Kiske you mention? Why do you not fill in any of this information?"

"You said you wanted to know, I'm telling you what you want to know. You want more details? Go ask Ky or someone else, I've got a job to do."

"Oh, and what would that be? Pout and whine about life, trying to hurt everything in your path so you don't have to take responsibility for any of it? You said you wanted me to send you to France? I could certainly take you to what is left of it, but I doubt that any of these things, if indeed they existed at all, would be waiting there for you when you arrive. Most likely all you would find would be monsters."

"Monsters?"

"Wild beasts drunk on seithr, mad with primal urges, stronger than anything you could keep in your thrall, yet able to adapt to the changed environment." Rachel chuckled for a bit, then added, "much like yourself, I might add."

"I am not an animal!"

Rachel laughed at Sol's reaction. "Oh, that was much more entertaining than your story thus far."

* * *

_[A/N: Writer's block sucks. That is all.]_


	11. Strip away the extraneous parts, please

Rachel yawned as she looked back at Sol sitting on her guest bed. She had plenty of time until she made her next move, but considering the amount of times she had been down this specific date before, it still made her a little annoyed that she would have to sit through it again. "Do tell me…what exactly are these Gears you mention?"

"In a nutshell? Weapons created through the fusion of magic and technology."

"So you have magic in your world?"

"Do we have magic?" Sol scoffed. "Does a bear take a dump in the woods?"

"Don't get snooty with me, you barbarian."

Sol resisted the urge to leap off the bed and smack her. Instead he spoke, "It was originally just supposed to be an evolution in warfare, every country was making these Gears in some arms race, but something went wrong. They all became sentient, and decided that humanity as a whole was their enemy. Lots of people died and lots of cities burned across the world before a select few heroes got together to fight back against them, taking all the magic they could and focusing it within their weapons to fight back against these Gears and stop the one who made them go berserk in the first place."

"Oh, and did there happen to be six of these heroes?" Rachel smirked.

"Yeah, that sounds awfully familiar to our own world's history!" Gii shouted, "You're just a big copy-cat!"

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize this story was already licensed by a fat pink squeak-toy."

"Hey!" Gii was offended by the remark, but Rachel pinched his back and held the familiar in place. She motioned for Sol to continue.

"There were a lot more than that, but there were two leaders: myself and Ky. There were a lot of good people that died during the war, but we managed to shut down the Commander Gear for good." Sol paused for a moment as another thought flashed across his mind. "Hey wait a minute, where is my sword?"

"Your sword is fine, though it appears to have changed a bit."

"Changed how?"

"I'll let you see it if you finish the story."

Sol scoffed. "Fine, but if you don't give it back I can still beat you without it."

Rachel frowned as she started to weigh the pros and cons of keeping him alive. _Just remember, you're doing this to break the time-loop. Then you can kill him later. Just be patient…_

* * *

Sol made his way down the stairs of the office building, following the trail of incapacitated bodies and scorch marks until he reached the lowest level he could. It figured that the trail would lead to the secret, lowest level of the building. As he stepped into the hallway and over the bodies of a few heavily-armed and armored guards, he heard a couple of male voices shouting angrily at each other.

"You fool! Don't you realize I'm trying to save this world from a greater threat?" It was the voice of That Man.

"You are using the life of an innocent child, and trying to resurrect the power of the Gears no less!" The other voice belonged to Ky Kiske, there was no mistaking it.

That Man scoffed at Ky. "Your time as an agent of INTERPOL has rotted your brain! You cannot see the consequences beyond your own nose! I'm trying to prepare this world for a future calamity! What is one life compared to the salvation of thousands?"

"Enough talk! You were the one who created this problem in the first place! I will be damned if I let you repeat that event! Drop her, or I swear I will cut you down!"

"Then do it! End it all right here Ky Kiske, if you have the courage to do so!"

Sol found the room where the two men were yelling at each other, and he saw Ky Kiske lancing a large bolt of electricity from his sword, but not at That Man. He was using his power on Dizzy. She was crying out in pain, but before Sol could act a splitting headache overtook him and he found himself faceplanting into the floor as his vision went black.

* * *

"…then the next thing I know, I'm in Kagutsuchi, I'm feeling hungrier than I've ever felt in my life, and there's a mixture of Japanese and Chinese writing on the walls and the signs. I try to grab something to eat, but then I run into a retarded, talking cat-girl, chase her down, run into some weird kind of giant, invisible, cloaked spider thing with a mask, and then you. Now I'm here."

Rachel chewed on that story for a bit, then responded, "A few elements seem awfully dubious, like the fact that the only reason you happen to be in this world was because some policeman hit a friend of yours with a lot of electricity, or the fact that you could even see that electricity. Doesn't exactly lend itself to truth, but then again stranger things have happened when magic is thrown into the mix."

"Like those freaky familiars that you keep hanging on to?"

"What I do with my familiars is none of your business." Rachel shook her head as she stood up and the chair form of Nago morphed back into an umbrella that Rachel carried. "Nonetheless, even if your story does seem unlikely, I shall show you the weapons I've collected." She started walking towards the door, but then turned around. "I'm sure you have the strength to walk, don't you Sol?"

Sol grunted as he lifted himself off of the bed on onto the floor. He was already thinking of ways to ambush this girl and escape.

"By the way, I wouldn't think of launching a rear assault if I were you." Rachel said as she continued walking out the door with her back turned to Sol. "For one thing, this mansion is not exactly located inside what you know to be Kagutsuchi, you wouldn't really get anywhere. And secondly, I have eyes watching you."

Sol nearly freaked out as Rachel's umbrella suddenly had a cat's face appear on its front, and even more disturbed when that same cat face began talking, "Count yourself lucky, commoner. You get to see the rest of the mansion!"

"Yes, the mistress is so generous with her mercy!" Gii said, "More generous than she's ever been with me…"

Rachel slapped Gii with one hand, "Gii, what did I say before about unsolicited opinions?"

* * *

Meanwhile, somewhere near the upper levels of Kagutsuchi, two watchmen from the NOL were sitting down to a late lunch before returning to the main Library for further orders.

"Hey Rosen?" Gilden mumbled as he was still chewing through a particularly tasty chicken sandwich.

"Yes Gilden?"Rosen responded, a bit miffed that his own roast beef sandwich had a bit too much mayo on it.

"Have you heard the latest orders from above?"

"That depends, Gilden." Rosen wiped his mouth with his sleeve, gagging as some of the mayo-slathered sandwich slid down his throat. "Was there any change from 'stand in front of a wide-open gate and look for suspicious people?' Because if there was, then I would have heard."

"Oh, so then you knew about the mass evacuation?"

"Mass evacu-what?" Rosen stared at Gilden like he was addressing a madman. "Is this some stupid joke?"

"I'm serious." Gilden took a swig of water to wet his mouth before he choked on his own food by accident. "Supposedly the Imperator himself had ordered that the main Library in Kagutsuchi be completely evacuated tomorrow."

"Why in God's name would anyone do that?"

"When the Imperator is the one giving you the order, you don't ask why. You just do it."

"Why didn't I hear anything about this?"

"Why, Mr. Smart-ass? I probably wouldn't have known about it either if not for the fact that I heard one of the others talking about it after their little scrape with some ninjas from Ronin-gai earlier. Apparently, our esteemed superiors didn't feel the need to let us know. Probably didn't care either."

"Heh, joke's on them." Rosen chuckled. "Now that the port's been damaged, they can't possibly evacuate all of us in time…" Rosen suddenly paused for a moment as he chewed on that thought, along with the last of his roast beef sandwich.

"Well, I'm sure no horrible tragedies will happen to us soon, and if they do we can always argue for hazard pay."

"Assuming we're around to collect it, you mean?"

"Well, yes, that goes without saying." Rosen suddenly found his attention drawn to a pair of loosely-dressed young ladies. Gilden saw his eyes wandering, and then asked if he was a pedophile.

Rosen did not answer the comment as he saw them walk into the Ladies room of the dining establishment.

* * *

Inside that same Ladies room, Jam Kuradoberi was washing her hands when saw two girls giving her a mean look in the bathroom mirror.

"Thought you could run from us Jam?" One of the girls spoke Jam turned around to face them. "You know you can't just back out of the deal like that."

"What are you talking about?" Jam asked. "I escaped with the rest of you guys, just like you said!"

"Really?" The second girl raised her eyebrows. Jam noted that they were really big. Distractingly big. "Because Marzo here tells me that you were snitching on us to the local authorities!"

"W-w-why would I do that?" Jam blushed, "You people don't have any proof."

"You have a wire under your shirt right now, don't you?" Marzo said, "Let's take a look." One of the girls advanced on her…

* * *

"Relax Rosen, it was just a stupid joke."

"Yeah, well I don't appreciate you insinuating that I enjoy the company of underage girls in that manner." Rosen snapped and then suddenly thought he heard a muffled, high-pitched scream, but dismissed it as just his imagination as he motioned for another refill of his water glass.

* * *

"Why would you do that?" Jam shouted. "Don't you people have any decency?"

"You have to sacrifice a lot sometimes in our line of work." Marzo tossed Jam her shirt back. "So here's what is going to happen next: We think we found where they took Captain Johnny, and you are gonna help us bust him out. They took him to a hospital, so it shouldn't be too hard. Once we get him out, we can form a plan to leave this town…what was it called?"

"Kagutsuchi," the pirate with the thick eyebrows confirmed.

"Yeah, what she said. So if you want the cash to open up that restaurant again, it would be in your best interest to help us out. Meet us outside the Ironworks shop, five blocks east away from here, and if I have to stay in this miserable town one second longer than necessary I will take it out on your ass."

The two pirates made their exit from the bathroom. Jam seriously considered beating them both up, but if she did she'd never get the money she was promised. She wasn't sure which was worse: working for criminals, or that she was stuck in a town she had never seen before. Sure, it had the same sights, sounds, and other little touches that reminded her of home, but it just didn't seem right.

Jam walked out of the bathroom and out of the restaurant, but accidentally bumped into a pair of NOL watchmen. One of them looked at her and said, "Excuse me miss, you seem a bit troubled. Is something wrong?"

Jam resisted the urge to burst out and tell him everything she knew, and instead said, "Tell me what isn't wrong these days?"

"What do you mean?" The man said, but Jam left before he could get a response.

"Smooth move, Rosen." The watchman's friend remarked.


	12. Someone is enjoying this a bit too much

_[Disclaimer: The following chapter contains a small torture scene that some younger readers might find a bit disturbing. Then again, no matter what your age group or [deity-of-choice]-fearing sensibilities, there's a good chance this warning will not stop you, and may even encourage you to read further thanks to the awfulness of the Internet. Either way, you have been warned.]_

* * *

May wasn't exactly sure where she was at the moment.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. She knew that she was lying in a surprisingly clean and sterile holding cell, much better than the ones the Jellyfish Pirates occasionally had to deal with as far as imprisonment in enemy territory. Also, her arms were painfully restrained behind her back. The guards here might not have been too skilled, but they were quick learners. Not only did they put the captured pirates in separate cells, but after the initial escape attempt they did a full search as well, removing anything that could conceivably be used to pick a lock and break free.

That didn't stop May from using her inhuman strength to try and brute force the lock. After about a minute of struggling, the guards used the method of binding her arms behind her back all the way to the elbows and throwing her in a separate room altogether. Even though she screamed for Johnny to come save them until her throat became hoarse, and even though she potentially sterilized a young NOL guard for life a few minutes ago, she decided to calm down.

They bound her arms so she couldn't gather any momentum or strength to break through anything, and short of ramming the metal bars with her head she wasn't going to get another escape attempt any time soon. She hoped that the other Jellyfish Pirates were alright, but she was comforted by the fact that some of them did escape the enemy, and that they were probably working on a rescue plan right now.

Suddenly she looked up as a well-dressed man with green hair stood at the door, with one of the guards still nursing his arm with an ice-pack. May tried to remember the man's name. Someone screamed it out when she crushed his arm in an angry vice-like grip, but it just didn't quite come to mind. Maybe it wasn't even that guy's real name.

"Now Captain, are you absolutely sure you want to be alone with the prisoner?" The guard was asking the tall green-haired man. "I mean, you should've seen what that little bitch did to Joski…that guy's never gonna be a daddy after today."

"Please, call me Hazama." The green-haired man smiled. "And it was his own fault for not wearing a supporter down there."

"Yeah, but we usually don't encounter little girls that can bend steel with their bare hands and sheer willpower."

"Ah, but a soldier of the NOL must be prepared for any eventuality that might arise, is that not true?"

"Well, if you want to speak with her alone, I won't stop you."

"Your concern is appreciated, good sir." Hazama stepped back and allowed the guard to unlock the cell door with a keycard strapped to his waist. "Oh, and would you mind turning off the recording devices for the time being? I want this to be a private chat."

The guard chuckled. "Oh certainly, sir. Please take your time." Hazama stepped into the cell and waited until he heard the door click shut behind him. Soon, the guard himself walked out, but still, Hazama waited to see what the reaction from this odd little girl would be.

A few seconds passed, and May maintained an angry expression on her face. She didn't know who this man was, but when anyone asked not to be recorded like this, it usually meant that something even worse than standard police interrogation was going to take place.

"Hello little girl." Hazama extended his right arm forward. "As you probably heard outside the cell, my name is Hazama. But don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you, at least not unless you give me a reason to do so." May was about to respond, but Hazama chuckled loudly. "Oh that's right, we can't shake hands properly with you all tied up like that, now can we?"

Hazama tried to circle around May, but May backed up against the cell wall. She wasn't going to lose what little advantage she had.

"I see, so you're a little smarter than I would give you credit for." Hazama took off his bowler hat and idly spun it around his finger. "You see, there were quite a few things I wanted to ask you, but we didn't have much time to exchange pleasantries did we? I suppose that's my own fault, considering I'm the one who strangled you into unconsciousness after you crash-landed."

May gasped. "That was you?"

"Indeed it was." Hazama replied matter-of-factly, as if he was explaining that adding one and one made two.

May charged at Hazama head-first, trying to surprise him, but Hazama expected she would try attacking. A cornered animal like her could never accept when she was beaten. Hazama took one step back and delivered an elbow strike to the back of May's head, putting enough power in it to send her to the ground.

"You know how a boa constrictor hunts?" Hazama continued speaking in that same tone as he straddled May's back before she could recover. "First it strikes at the prey, really digs in with its teeth."

Hazama put his hat back on and slipped a knife out of his suit jacket. He started lightly caressing the back of May's body with the blade as he continued his speech, his voice sounding disturbingly more upbeat and happy as he spoke.

"And then it wraps its body around the prey as it struggles, just waaaaaaiting for it to exhale, and at that moment, it squeezes!" Hazama quickly wrapped one arm around May's neck and pressed the other arm into his back, making sure the knife wouldn't nick him by accident. As May struggled again to breathe, Hazama began to laugh. "Then this beauty of a snake just keeps tightening the pressure on the poor victim's body, continually squeezing, constricting, and raising the pressure until its soon-to-be-dinner just stops moving for good!"

May started seeing stars at the sides of her vision along with the metallic floor. She wanted to tap out, to beg him to stop, but there was nothing she could do. Her arms were bound, her legs were pinned, and her throat was being choked by this horrible man on top of her.

Suddenly, Hazama released his chokehold and May coughed violently in response, but Hazama didn't get off of her back. "You see, if I wanted you dead then we wouldn't be having this conversation. All I had to do was apply a little pressure to your carotid artery, and you were down for the count. A few minutes more, your brain would shut down from lack of oxygen. You would be a veritable vegetable, dead by most standards. Even the strongest human being alive cannot have a natural resistance to being choked."

May shut her eyes and tried to think of Johnny as she felt the knife run down her back. She could only hope that whatever this sadistic son of a bitch was planning, he would just stop talking and get it over with quickly.

"I know what you're thinking." Hazama suddenly whined in a mocking, high-pitched voice. _"'Is the big bad man gonna ravish my cute, innocent, vulnerable body?'_ Trust me, the thought had crossed my mind, but you're not exactly my type. So here's the deal, my little pirate girl: you're going to help me with a little problem I need solved."

May gasped in shock, but then growled. "Why the fuck would I help you, you sadistic freak?"

"Indeed, why should you trust the man currently pointing a knife into your back? Well, there are a few good reasons. First of all, I happen to be in a good position where I could very well kill you, torture you, or turn you over to certain…unsavory figures who have even fewer moral qualms than I do."

May gasped in shock. How could this possibly get any worse?

"However, I also have the power to help you reunite with the rest of your crew, and that beloved Johnny you've been having orgasms over this whole time."

May suddenly felt the blood rush to her face in embarrassment. "I-I have not! What the hell…"

"Ah ah ah, don't get too excited little girl." Hazama rested the flat of the blade against her spinal cord as she pushed May's face back onto the cold, sterile, metallic floor. "It won't take much effort here to put you in a wheelchair for the rest of your life. But like I said, I can make sure that you and Johnny are reunited safe and sound. He's currently being healed by some of our best doctors. When he's healthy, instead of being thrown in jail I can ensure you that he gets off with a mere slap on the wrist."

"Really?"

"Indeed. And not only that, but we might be able to put in a good word with the NOL's Ports Authority Division to get your whole crew back doing whatever business ventures they were doing before."

"What's the catch? I know you're not just doing this out of the goodness of your heart."

"Of course, I had a feeling you weren't that gullible." Hazama returned to his normal voice, "You see, there's a certain troublemaker or two that needs to be dealt with as soon as possible, and I think someone with your skills and pent-up frustration could be just the person to deal with them. Allow me to explain…"

* * *

Meanwhile, at the small building with "Daidara's Ironworks" written on the sign outside and a small plume of smoke belching out of the chimney, a group of four schoolchildren collectively shifted their eyes left and right before holding their jackets tighter and scampering in zig-zag lines down the road. Jam gave them a curious glance, but then simply shrugged her shoulders and walked into the place along with two of the Jellyfish Pirates.

Racks of old weaponry and armor lined the walls. Some of them looked ancient and broken, others looked surprisingly high-tech, and one or two just looked out of place. In the middle of the shop, behind the counter, stood an old sweaty man with reddish hair who was counting his money as he noticed the three girls walking into his store.

"Ah, welcome, my beauties!" He bellowed in a surprisingly jovial tone that threw off Jam for a moment. "I must admit, I have not seen your kind around here. Perhaps you are travelers? Foreigners? First-timers? Well, whatever your needs, I'm sure you'll find that they will be filled here, at Daidara's Ironworks!"

"Cute speech." Marzo muttered in response. "Look, I heard you're in the business of creating…custom-fitting protection."

"Yes! Indeed! Perfect for the guy or girl heading into a party where the other side might want to stab you in the gut!"

"Why would anyone go to such a thing?" Jam asked out loud.

"Hey, I'm not allowed to provide too many details, but the body count was so high that the NOL had to spend tons on therapy for their troopers at that bachelor party when the incident was over." Daidara stopped and then changed his train of thought. "But enough about unintended consequences. What would you like? A witch costume? Perhaps a lovely shrine-maiden with darkmetal plating hidden underneath? Or maybe a sexy policewoman for taking down some punk from Sector Seven?"

"Do you have anything with a nurse or doctor motif?" The pirate with the unibrow asked.

"Ah, perfect for the medical profession! Let me go look in the back!" Daidara disappeared below the counter as Jam wondered if she should say that was technically in the direction of "down" and not "back." Still, she held her tongue until Daidara reappeared with three sexy nurse outfits. "Here ya go! Three wet nurse outfits, and as an added bonus you get the protection of studded leather sown right in, to protect you from whatever may come your way!"

Marzo and Jam studied the outfits closely, then asked, "Do you have anything less stereotypical? Like maybe a lab coat or something?"

"A lab coat? But lab coats are for males, and you're a girl! Showing off your cleavage is how you fight, right?"

Jam immediately punched him in the face.

"AH!" Daidara shouted as he stumbled back from the counter. "You cracked my nose!" He held his nose as he cried out in pain, though his words sounded more like "Yu craghed my nodez!"

"We'll do a lot worse than that if you don't give us what we want!"

"Okay, okay, sheesh!" Daidara went back down his hidden stairway mumbling all the while, "Should have just kept selling deadly shoes and metal folding chairs to schoolchildren, but noooo…"

A moment later, Daidara emerged with three medium-sized lab coats, though they didn't seem to have any extra protection. He did claim that they would provide maybe one second of extra time to say your prayers if you were choking on a visible mass of seithr. None of the pirates knew what he meant by that, but assumed it was some kind of local insult. Nonetheless, the girls paid with a few gold coins they had swiped from their last heist and went on their way. The first part of their plan to rescue Johnny from the hospital was in motion.

Once they were out of sight, Daidara made a call to a local NOL patrolman. They were going to learn the consequences of screwing with him. Now he was going to have to build a new device to keep his nose on his face. Maybe he could build a metallic one! With a hidden compartment he could hide a detachable LED inside! The ideas were already spinning around in his head as he went back down to the sweatshop hidden below to see how the kids were doing on the latest sword prototype.


	13. A prototype battle scene

"…so can you tell me where my sword is?" Ky Kiske slid himself off of the table and got into a standing position. He was feeling tired and a little achy, despite the painkillers that this Doctor Ling had given to him. Even so, he willed himself to focus on the immediate problems at hand: he was hungry, in a place he didn't recognize, Dizzy was missing after that incident in France, and now the doctor had informed him that his sword was gone. Things just found a way to get worse.

"What does it matter?" Litchi asked, "It's just a sword, you can get another one, can't you?"

"You don't understand," Ky gasped, then calmed himself down and explained, "that sword is one of the original weapons that was used to defeat the Gears. There is a ton of magic imbued within that sword. If someone else got their hands on it, who knows what they could do with that kind of power?"

Litchi thought for a moment. "Would this weapon be a Nox Nyctores?"

"A what?"

"A Nox Nyctores."

"What the heck is that?"

Litchi rubbed her forehead as she tried to think of a way to explain this in words the foreigner could understand. "Basically, a Nox Nyctores is a weapon or item imbued with magic, like you said. It essentially channels seithr through the item and uses it to amplify the user's own power, but the tradeoff is that the seithr being channeled through the item has a way of amplifying the user's emotions the more it is used. The weapon you describe, this 'Fuuraiken,' sounds quite similar. If it were a Nox Nyctores, you would be experiencing some form of withdrawal symptoms about now…"

"Whatever kind of weapon you call it, I need to find it as soon as possible!"

"…guess I spoke too soon." Litchi scribbled down something else on a notepad, "Tell you what: I'll help you search for this sword of yours if you can help me with a problem of mine."

"I don't have time for this, Doctor. I have urgent business to..."

Ky suddenly paused as Litchi pressed the blunt end of a pen directly under his chin and leaned in uncomfortably close to his face. Litchi was no longer smiling. "You want to find a sword you lost in the lower levels of Kagutsuchi. I want to find a lost friend of mine. You take the deal, help me with this, and I'll try my best to help you find your precious weapon. Or if you want to leave, just pay your fee for the painkillers and I'll let you limp out of here with whatever manly pride you want to keep. Your choice."

"Doctor!" Linhua shouted. "You can't threaten the patient! He shouldn't even be standing!"

"No…it's my choice." Ky gritted his teeth. The painkillers Litchi had given him had helped numb the pain after his fight with Bang, but he had gone through worse back during the Crusades against the Gears. He had to get back down to the lower levels of the city and find the Fuuraiken. If he didn't get it back, the responsibility would fall on his shoulders.

_The one time I wish that weirdo Anji was here, and I have no clue where to find him…hell, I wonder if he's even in this world? Is anyone? Am I the only one here?_

"So, what do you say?"

"I'll do it."

"Good." Litchi smiled as she pocketed the pen. "I've just got to grab a few things, we're going to make a quick stop first."

"A quick stop? Where?"

"Nothing big, just checking up on the Kaka Clan."

"The Kaka Clan?"

"You've got a lot to learn, Ky." Litchi ducked back into the office and grabbed some medical supplies, stuffing them into an insulated duffel bag. Then she grabbed a few notes about her friend's last known location.

Meanwhile, next to the bed, Ky posed a question to Linhua, "Is she always this tense?"

"Not always." Linhua replied, "Recently she's been a little on edge, obsessively working behind her desk from time to time, but she's a real nice person at heart. I mean, she was nice enough to set up this clinic in Orient Town, to help those who can't afford to go to the hospital."

"You mean they charge people lots of money to get healthy?"

"Yeah. The care is top notch, but if you don't work for the Library or know someone who does, a couple visits are enough to put you in debt for the rest of your life."

"That's horrible…what kind of government would do such a thing?"

"The same one that blew up Ikaruga in an instant?"

"Ikaruga?" Ky remembered hearing that name recently. "The Library? Damn, I thought the politics of my world were complicated." Linhua stared at Ky, dumbfounded. "What's the problem?"

Linhua shook her head "How could you live on this world and not have heard of either of those groups? At least tell me you've heard of the Great War of Magic or the Six Heroes or the Black Beast?" Ky kept his mouth shut. "C'mon, they teach this stuff to children! There's even a picture book about it!"

"You'll have to excuse my assistant," Litchi stepped back into the room, carrying a couple of bags on her shoulders. "We haven't had many customers today, and she's had to deal with being stuck in here for awhile."

"You sure you're gonna be okay, boss?" Linhua whispered to Litchi. "I mean, not only are you going down to the lower levels, but this guy seems to be a few stones short of a Go set. I'm not sure I trust him."

"Don't worry, Linhua. You know me, I can handle a few idiots here and there." Litchi adjusted her panda-shaped hairpiece to emphasize the point. "Lao Jiu hasn't let me down yet."

Linhua shook her head, but decided to accept Litchi's response. "Well, someone's gotta stay and watch the shop, guess I'll do it. Good luck Doctor, and be safe."

* * *

A couple of hours had passed, and the white-haired man with the large red coat was getting incredibly tense. He tried his best to hide it, but his foot kept tapping as he surveyed the crowd. He looked at the world map next to the ticket booth: the next stop on his list was the city of Kagutsuchi, where yet another library stood, just begging for him to come.

"What do you mean, cancelled?" A woman in a fur coat shouted, standing outside the ticket booth. "I've had this seat reserved for weeks! I have family to visit! An opera to attend!"

"I'm truly sorry ma'am." The young clerk behind the window stammered, "But the Port of Kagutsuchi has been damaged, and we can't send any more transports until we receive confirmation that it's safe to travel to that city. We are working on other ways to…"

"Get me the manager! I demand to speak to someone in charge!"

The man shook his head as he stood up from the bench. Apparently, the Port of Kagutsuchi was damaged when some pirate airship crashed into it. People were pissed off that the tickets they paid so much for were worthless for now. But for him, it presented an opportunity. The NOL would be too busy dealing with the damage to worry about him, and besides, if he couldn't stow away on an airship, he'd do the next best thing…as soon as his contact arrived anyway.

"Heeeey, Shinigami Dude!" A young punk with headphones around his neck waved to the white-haired man from afar as he weaved through the crowd towards him. "Heeeey!"

The man could only shake his head in disgust. Apparently, "subtlety" and "tact" were foreign words to these people. "You think you could be a little louder?" He growled at the messenger. "I don't think they heard you in Kagutsuchi yet."

"Relax, man. Not like anyone around here wants trouble."

"Look, do you have the stuff or not?"

"Do I have the stuff? Look here, buddy." With one fluid motion, the messenger slipped the backpack off his shoulders and showed the contents inside to the white-haired man.

"…I don't recall asking for a stack of porno mags."

"What?" the young punk looked inside, then blushed, "Aw shit, hold on a sec." He started rummaging through the pack, then eventually located the items he meant to show. "Here you go, custom-designed to help you get in and start the fireworks. Just like last time."

The white-haired man grimaced at the accent of the young punk one more time before reaching in and collecting the scripts: A stealth charm that would keep him relatively out of mind against anyone who wasn't really searching for him, barrier magic to help protect against some basic weaponry the NOL troopers usually carried, a few portable explosive devices and a hacking tool to deal with the act of destroying the Library itself.

"So, Ragna, now that I've done my part…" The messenger held out his hand. Ragna dropped some change in his hand. "Thanks for your help fighting the tyranny of the Library for us. Gotta jet now, Shinigami Dude."

Ragna glanced at the stealth charm as the messenger ran away. If it could hide that guy from the eyes of most people, then it really had to be powerful. Hopefully he wouldn't use it all up trying to hide from those monsters in the world below. Then again, the last one didn't exactly go as smoothly as he had hoped…

* * *

_It was a relatively simple plan at first…well, simple for Ragna the Bloodedge anyways._

"_Hello ladies, gentlemen, and tourists of the Novus Orbis Librarium!" He shouted out in a crowded main hall. "I am Ragna the Bloodedge, and I'm giving everyone here one chance to escape with their lives, before I bring this Library down to the ground!"_

_Some stood dumbfounded at the man who had stepped into the building and shouted out this proclamation. Others slammed the panic button and ran, their meager salaries not giving them the motivation to confront this person. Some NOL guards surrounded him with various weapons ranging from short swords to rifles, all in disbelief that this idiot could possibly be the SS-class threat the Librarium had warned them about._

"_Only 10 of you? Good, I was hoping to wrap this up before dinner." Ragna braced himself for the coming onslaught, hoping that enough civilians got out in time. He really didn't want to be saddled with any more deaths on his conscience than what was necessary._

"_Oh come on!" One guard shouted, "He's just one man! Take him down!"_

_Three guards holding guns fired them at Ragna's body. Ragna whipped out his giant sword and managed to block two of them, but a third hit him in the chest and dropped him to the ground._

"_That's it?" The leader of the guards seemed confused, "This is the SS-class threat? How pathetic." He raised his sword up to cut off Ragna's head, already thinking about how he was going to retire on the massive reward the NOL promised for it, but he never had the chance to bring it down as Ragna brought his own sword up and stabbed the guard through the chest, the tip poking through his back._

"_That hurt." Ragna grunted as he pulled his sword out of the guard's body. "Even with this healing power…that freaking hurt." _

_At that point, a few more guards dropped their weapons and ran screaming out the front door, their steps echoing in the mostly empty hall except for the few guards who decided to continue fighting with Ragna the Bloodedge. After all, just one bullet took him down, so it wouldn't be that hard to finish him off, right?_

_Ragna proved them wrong. He cut through every single guard stupid enough to stay and fight in that main hall. A leg here, an arm there, and a head rolling across the floor marked his presence as Ragna flicked the blood off of his sword and walked to the stairway. Someone here was smart enough to shut off the power to the elevator, so he was going to have to take the long way down. And he was sure that these weren't the only guards foolish enough to challenge him._

_Eventually, he managed to get down to the basement level after cutting through several more NOL guards who were either very brave or very foolish. He went about completing his task: overload the power generators that kept the Library running, and place special explosives on them to amplify the destruction and level the building. He restarted the console using the code that he acquired from his contact, but just as he was about to enter in the information, he thought he heard a voice calling out to him over the PA system:_

"_Raaaaagna?"_

_He tried to ignore it and continue with his mission, but something about that voice sounded familiar. The voice of a light-hearted young girl…_

"_Raaaagna? Won't you come and visit me? I'm getting so lonely without you here."_

_Ragna jumped back as a cluster of flying blades planted itself in the floor where he stood a moment before._

"_You're not cheating, are you? That would make me soooo sad, Ragna."_

_Ragna reached for his sword, but then found himself floating an inch above the floor, unable to gain any traction. The figure that appeared before him appeared to be some kind of small human-shaped robot. The mouth and the hair seemed to be the only indication that there could be anything human about it at all. What the hell was the NOL doing here? _

_Ragna watched as the robot flew towards him and started cutting him in several different places all over his body. He could only block a few of the strikes. There were simply too many blades to deal with "Who the hell are you?" Ragna shouted, trying to ignore the pain racking his body. "What do you want with me?"_

"_Awww, you don't know who I am?" The girl's voice on the PA system started to sob a bit. "I'm disappointed Ragna, I thought you were better than that. If you can't do your best, then we can't become one, and that would make me sad."_

"_So the NOL put some money into an advanced security robot? That's supposed to scare me?" Ragna clenched his artificial fist tightly as a dark aura slowly covered it. "Don't fuck with me!" He leaped up into the air, batting half the blades away with his sword as he closed the distance to the robot. Granted, it wasn't too hard in this small room, but it took substantial strength to break through the localized gravity field._

_Ragna swore he heard the robot started spewing out some odd language. _**Warning, unable to maintain field, anamoly breaking through temporal rift. Recalculating. Recalculating. Recalculating.** _Ragna kept his eyes on the prize, not letting himself get distracted as his glowing fist smacked the robot in what passed for its face, sending it to the ground._

_Before it could get back up, Ragna grabbed his sword and prepared to behead the creature, but just as he was about to do it, the voice came again, "Why are you doing this, Ragna? Don't you love me anymore?"_

_It couldn't be her. It couldn't be the girl Ragna thought it was. She was dead. She had been dead since that incident with Jin. But why did that voice sound so familiar? Why did this robot's face seem similar? It couldn't possibly be related, could it?_

**Recovering…launching attack.**

_Ragna felt invisible blades rise up from the ground and pierce his legs as the robot girl got back up from the ground and then hover a few centimeters above it. Though there was no blood, he felt as if his kneed had just failed him and he sat kneeling on the ground. He couldn't believe it, but then he remembered something Jubei once taught him, "No matter how good or how fast your opponent may be, just one mistake is all you need to turn a losing battle into a winning one." Apparently, he wasn't the only one who knew this lesson._

_The physical blades that seemed to have a mind of their own separated from the robot and flew in a sweeping motion at Ragna's neck. Ragna grabbed them with his mechanical hand, then stood up, trying to ignore the pain racking his legs, trying to shut it out like Jubei had taught him awhile ago. This robot girl wasn't going to give him too many more chances._

**Error: unable to use physical damage, recharging seithr content for rift access, recharging…**

"_Having trouble with these?" Ragna asked, still grabbing hard onto the small blades with his mechanical hands as they tried to reset themselves in a defensive position around the robot girl. "Here, allow me to give them back to you…WITH INTEREST!" He leaped into the air again, just like last time with his specialized "Gauntlet Hades" technique, shoving the robot's own blades through its face with some added seithr coursing through his artificial hand. After a bunch of sparks flew out of its caved-in face, the robot collapsed in a heap._

"_Oh Ragna, I knew you could do it!" The voice returned over the PA system, even though the robot girl ceased to move. "I just know we're going to have so much fun together! I look forward to seeing you at Kagutsuchi, my dear brother!"_

"_Brother? What the hell are you talking about?" The PA system went silent as Ragna waited for a response. Finally, he decided to go back to his original mission of destroying the Library, and walked back to the computer to finish his work. He could figure out this weird turn of events later.

* * *

_

_**[****A/N: at some point I'm going to pick a consistent format and stick with it. Review section is open for any praise or complaints.]**__  
_


	14. It doesn't matter whose side he's on

Noel Vermillion finally woke up on the couch, feeling a bit groggy, trying to remember what had made her fall asleep before.

"Evenin' kiddo." Colton Black spoke as he finished another glass.

"M-Mister Black? What am I?"

"Sorry, didn't know you were that much of a lightweight." Colton shook his head, cursing his own curiosity. "It was my fault for dragging you in to that, but I did give you a sobriety pill, so there shouldn't be too many ill effects."

"Sobriety? You mean…"

"Yep, bathroom's over there. When you're done, I'll tell you what you came here to find out."

"Wait, are you…" Noel suddenly grabbed her stomach. She really didn't feel so good all of a sudden, and ran as fast as she could to the bathroom Colton had pointed out a second ago. After slamming the door shut, Noel shouted, "UGH! When's the last time you really cleaned this place?"

"Hey, I wasn't expecting company." Colton grunted. "Let me know next time, it might motivate me to do a better job."

"Screw you!"

"Sorry kid, you're not my type." Colton sat on the couch, idly tapping his fingers as he thought back to his giant conspiracy board in his room. He was on the verge of something big, evidence that there was some crossover between Sector Seven and the Library. Too many questions remained, too many variables he didn't have yet. Even so, it was a working theory. He just hoped Noel would believe it, because at this point he was running out of people he could trust…

* * *

A few years ago, Colton Black was the chief of security in a highly-secret facility at the time when an experiment was happening deep inside the capital of the Ikaruga Federation. He didn't know exactly what the eggheads at Sector Seven were doing, but he did hear enough around the facility to recognize that they were trying to gather a large amount of seithr, focusing it into a giant Cauldron for some purpose he didn't recognize. What he did know was that Noel was at the center of that project.

She had a different name then. The scientists simply referred to her as Mu-12, or just "Myu." She was a little blonde-haired girl with blue eyes who had no clue what she was getting into. And frankly, neither did Colton. He had other concerns at the time, like staying alive and drawing a paycheck. It seemed easy enough, considering very few people knew about the facility all he had to do was catch the occasional straggler or discipline someone for slacking off.

Just as the eggheads were beginning their great experiment, it seemed that the Library did in fact know about the facility, because the place was vaporized in an instant. Colton had no clue at the time, considering at one moment he was just sipping a cup of "Irish coffee" while a rifle hung by a leather strap over his shoulder. Then in the next moment, there was a rumbling noise as a great light pierced through the center of the facility, and suddenly everything was in ruins.

Colton knew there were a few people who survived the ordeal, but most of them didn't last long. NOL troops moved in after that explosion, killing everyone that moved. In retrospect, they probably committed a few war crimes that Colton could name, but these men didn't seem too concerned with being court-martialed at the time. The only reason Colton's life was spared was because of the blonde-haired girl he managed to pry from the wreckage of the facility. Unconscious, but alive, and with an odd piece of metal lying next to her that seemed to disappear into thin air a minute later.

They probably would have finished off Colton as well, if not for the little girl he held up high as leverage to appeal to their conscience. The soldiers held their weapons up high, but none of them felt like moving forward to attack until one soldier spoke, a rifleman that Colton would later find out was named Corporal Vermillion.

"Give me the girl," he said. "She doesn't deserve this."

"You don't know what you're dealing here!" Colton shouted back, though he coughed up a lot of dust as well. "If I give her to you, what's to stop you from killing me? Get her some medical attention, and I'll surrender."

The soldiers moved forward, but Colton just held Noel closer in response. Then Corporal Vermillion dropped his weapon and stepped forward, holding his hands up high to show he was now unarmed as the gun clattered to the ground. "I come from a noble family," he said, "you have my word that I will treat her well."

Colton had trouble trusting that word, but at that point he didn't have many options. It was either a chance of death or a certainty of death, and he took the chance. "I surrender," he growled as he handed the girl off to the Corporal. "She deserves better than what they did to her."

In response, the Corporal took the girl from his arms and called a field medic over while another man slammed him into the broken concrete that made up the ground and tied his arms behind his back, leaving a bloody mark on his cheek. He was officially a Prisoner of War, though that designation didn't last long when he heard a few days later that the war had ended.

After rotting in a cell for some time, he ended up going before an Arbitrator to explain his crimes before the Library. For the information he gave, he didn't expect to get off lightly, but they offered him a chance to repay his debt to the Library by becoming a teacher for a short period. He expected that the Vermillion family had pulled some strings in that regard, so he decided to teach the only art he really knew: gun-kata, the way of the gun.

Not many people showed up to that class, seeing it as a far-fetched version of a dying art, but Noel was one of the people who did. The same girl he rescued from the wreckage awhile ago. It was one hell of a coincidence.

* * *

"Ugh, I don't know how you do it." Noel said as she stepped out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind her, "How do you live like this?"

"Live? That's one fine way of putting it Noel." Colton stood up from the chair. "There's something I need to tell you."

"What is it, Mr. Black?"

"Listen and listen good, because this is going to sound a little weird at first, but it involves the Library."

"Oh? Hazama said you had some information on Sector Seven? What are you talking about with the Library?"

"Well, that's what I mean, I think Hazama is playing both sides."

"What? Why would he do that?"

"I've got some evidence that I can show--"

Colton was interrupted by a loud knock at the door. He picked up his pistols and held a finger to his lips, signaling Noel to be quiet for the moment. "I wasn't expecting company today." He called out as he walked closer to the front door, "This is quite a surprise. Who could it be?"

He only received more knocking in response as he looked through the peephole.

"What's wrong, who is it?" Noel asked.

Colton hissed at her to keep quiet. "Look kid, there's a trapdoor hidden in the middle of my bedroom. Dig it out and escape, I'll hold him off."

"Is it something dangerous?"

"Trust me kid, you can't handle this monster."

"I'm a soldier of the Librarium, I have to help!"

"Kid, patriotism and three bucks will get you a pint of cheap beer. Now get out of here! Go!" Noel saw the front door of the house cave in as a large metallic fist punched through it. "It ain't my time to die yet!" Colton started firing at the "monster" as it retracted its giant fist back outside.

* * *

"You really think point-38 caliber bullets are enough to stop me?" Tager spoke as if Colton was a mere annoyance, not once raising his voice. "My armored skin is enough to stop even a Nox Nyctores from penetrating it, you'll have to try a bit harder than that."

"The Red Devil of Sector Seven, the Iron Tager himself." Colton growled through the now-open doorway, "Of all the people Sector Seven could have sent to finish me off, they had to send you?"

"For some reason, Sector Seven claims that you know too many of their trade secrets to be left alive." Tager shook his head. "If it's really been that long since the incident at Ikaruga, then I don't think it'll matter what you told them, but orders are orders. So let me make this easier for both of us. If you give up now, I'll make it quick." Colton fired another shot from his pistol at Tager's face in response, piercing the glass covering his right eye. Tager growled in frustration. "So that's your answer then?"

"If you happened to know more about me than my rap sheet, you'd know I don't give up so easily."

"So be it then." Tager charged the magnetic coils built into his arms, and the pistols quickly flew out of Colton's hands along with other assorted metallic bits and pieces in the surrounding area and towards Tager's body. A crowd started to gather around outside at the sight of the strange red man who seemed to be collecting metal around his torso. "You want to die the hard way? That's your choice."

Colton ran back into the house. He didn't see Noel behind him, so he assumed she took the hidden way out. Colton planned to follow her, but he didn't get the chance as several small pieces of metal suddenly ripped through his body. Tager took all the metal in the area he had attracted with his magnetic coils, and then repelled it with tremendous force in the direction of Colton as he tried to run.

"Damn it all." Colton growled as he lay on the ground, unable to move from the pain and the blood loss. "Guess I could only cheat death for so long before it caught up with me."

Tager bulldozed his way into the house, his tremendous frame bringing a section of the front wall down along with the door frame. He had to make sure this time.

* * *

"C'mon, c'mon." Noel muttered to herself as she mashed the panic button Hazama had given her awhile ago as she crawled through the dusty crawlspace. Compared to the rest of the house, it was surprisingly clean, if dark, as if it had been installed quite recently. "Please be nearby, please be nearby…"

She continued crawling through the duct, trying not to make too much noise so the monster wouldn't find her. She wasn't running, she was retreating and calling for backup, just like someone taught her at the Academy. She continued telling herself that as she tried to open the exit hatch. She just hoped that Hazama would get here in time.

* * *

Elsewhere, Hazama found himself skimming through a list of tasks on his PDA when a warning popped up that the panic button he had given Noel had been activated.

_Well well, looks like she actually went and did it._ Hazama smiled as he began humming joyfully to himself. But then he stopped as another thought crossed his mind. _I do hope she remembered to get out of the way this time, or else I'm going to have to start this all over again, and with the interlopers wandering around it would be even more of a problem than before. There's only so many little teeny errors I can account for before they combine into one big one._

* * *

Tager certainly didn't expect what happened next.

One moment, the filthy house with several empty liquor bottles was host to a crippled old alcoholic mercenary. It was going to be easy, but apparently the man was smarter than he gave him credit for.

The next moment, the entire house was suddenly engulfed in flames. An incendiary explosive, probably hidden within the house in the event of Mr. Black's untimely death. Tager didn't expect that to happen with this man, but now he was more concerned with getting out of the flames before his systems overheated and he automatically shut down to vent out the heat.

As he ran back out the way he came, the crowd shouted, screamed in fear, or just scattered. The fact that Tager happened to be on fire at the time only fueled the superstition about the infamous Red Devil who walked the streets. In any case, the NOL was probably going to send troops to this location. A primal part of his brain wanted them to come, just so he'd have a little more of a challenge than the sorry old gunman.


	15. Where did she get that weapon?

Noel felt the air around her getting a lot hotter and found herself struggling to breathe. Something bad had happened back inside the house. She hoped Mr. Black was alright, but she began to fear the worst. She had to get out of this crawlspace. Just keep going forward until she reached daylight, ignore the pounding in her chest, the fears swirling around in her head, and just get out.

Eventually, she wormed her way out of the crawlspace and on to what appeared to be a street. Apparently, it was now about nighttime, as the various lamps were now lit and several stands and shops had put up their electric signs advertising their wares. But the people seemed to be focusing on a set of TV screens showing a building bursting into flames, the very one she had just finished escaping. Before Noel had finished crawling out of the confined space, the smiling face of Hazama had just popped into view, as if he had somehow teleported onto the scene.

"Hazama!" Noel shouted, "W-w-what are you doing here?"

"You pushed the panic button I gave you, did you not, Lieutenant Vermillion?" Hazama helped pull Noel out of the crawlspace and into a standing position. "It's a terrible shame that you were interrupted, though. I would have liked to see what he discovered about Sector Seven."

"We have to go back, Hazama! Mr. Black might still be alive!"

"Oh don't worry your pretty little head about that, Noel. I've got some people working on that problem as well. For now, we should head back home and get you a shower, you probably need it after…"

"Captain Hazama! This is serious!" Noel became frustrated, "How can you be so calm and joke about this? Mr. Black was a teacher at the Academy, and he was attacked by the Red Devil of Sector Seven! You can't just leave him there!"

"Lieutenant," Hazama's tone sounded just as upbeat, but there was a slight undercurrent of impatience hidden in it, "I told you before that I have people taking care of Mr. Black. Your concerns lie elsewhere. For now, the Intelligence Division needs you to resume the task of locating Major Jin Kisaragi. I am offering you the chance to rest a bit before continuing on that mission."

"But I…"

"If you don't think you can handle the task that your superior has set before you, then let me know right now and I will find someone else who can."

Noel looked back at the burning building in the distance, and then returned her gaze to Hazama, and then to the TV screens showing a flaming Red Devil walking out of the wreckage while some assorted civilians muttered words of prayer.

"Ok, I understand."

Hazama stretched his arms out. "See? Was that so hard? Trust me, we'll give Mr. Black's attacker the attention he so deserves."

* * *

_Alright, that's enough for now. _Tager thought to himself, _We can work out the mystery of that explosive later. For now, I suppose I should retreat..._

His train of thought was interrupted as he felt a large object smack into his back and sent him stumbling. The object landed on the ground, and Tager turned around to see a large anchor.

_Who? What? Where would one even find a large anchor like that?_

A little girl screamed and ran full force into Tager, sending him stumbling again. Something was different though, this girl seemed incredibly strong for her small frame. How could she possibly have enough strength? Even if you compensated for momentum and adrenaline, it didn't make any sense!

"Who are you?" Tager growled, "Why are you attacking me?" Even as he spoke, he noticed a few NOL troops forming a perimeter around the area and pushing the civilians out of the way. Of course, now it made sense: draw out the Red Devil himself with a mission deep into enemy territory, probably leaked to Sector Seven as Mr. Black was an expendable asset. Then combine the incendiary explosive with forcing him to fight through NOL troops, eventually his system would automatically shut down in order to prevent overheating and melting the circuitry that kept his body functional.

But that still didn't explain this weird girl who had picked up the anchor and held it like a weapon. Seriously, what kind of person attacked with an anchor?

* * *

For all the things that bastard Hazama had done, at least he gave her a target to vent her frustrations. May didn't understand what this big red thing was, nor did she particularly care. All she cared about was getting Johnny back, and if this thing had to go down so she could get closer to him, then so be it.

May didn't know why the giant was trying to ask questions of her instead of hitting back, but she took advantage of it all the same, beating the giant in the chest with her anchor with as much strength as she could muster, equipped with an anchor she borrowed from a nearby seafood restaurant. She hoped they wouldn't mind.

After several strikes, she saw the monster finally drop to one knee and mutter something. She was too caught up in the action to see a glowing fist coming right at her face, smacking her and sending her flying into a nearby building. She actually flew so hard that there were cracks in the building, either that or some contractor had really skimped on the building materials. Either way, it freaked out the people in the building who thought they were relatively safe from the fight.

* * *

"Maybe you're another crude imitation of the anti-Sankishin unit." Tager stood back up, "Or perhaps you've become drunk on seithr and it's given you this power at the expense of your sanity. Whatever the excuse, I've got no more time to waste with you."

May stood back up as well, trying to shake off the dizziness she felt as she tried to think of how she could attack him next. However, Tager raised up a hand and made it glow again. The magnetic coil built into his arm started subtly dragging May back towards his hand, and May had trouble digging her shoes into the stony ground, finding herself getting pulled into Tager's arm. The metallic nanites Tager released with his last powered punch covered every inch of May, and they would not let go as the dragged her closer and closer.

"I'll make this quick." Tager finally grabbed May's small head in his large fist. He rotated his shoulders around twice, then tossed her up into the air and sent a message to his systems to activate a special maneuver, the Genesic Emerald Tager Buster. However, his attempt to follow the next step in the technique met with an error message: pulling off such a technique would cause his systems to overheat. The jump jets in his legs wouldn't fire. His large frame was planted on the ground.

As if his problems weren't bad enough, May had started falling back to the earth, the force of gravity only adding to the already considerable strength that she somehow possessed.

Tager knew he should move out of the way, but a part of him thought that the little girl falling down was going to be hurt if he didn't catch her. By the time he pushed that thought out of his head, Tager felt the full force of May's boot and gravity smacking into his face, sending him to the ground and knocking him out for a brief second. When he regained his bearings, he found that he couldn't move, but he was fully aware of everything happening around him. His system had probably shut down due to overheating. He just hoped Kokonoe had a way to get him out of this. He did not relish the thought of what the NOL would do if they tried to interrogate him.

* * *

Meanwhile, at Rachel's mansion, Sol was getting very impatient. "Geez, how big is this mansion?" Sol wondered aloud, "I feel like we've been walking forever."

"Cease your complaining, Sol," Rachel said without stopping to acknowledge him. "Time may flow a little differently in this particular realm, but that is no excuse for you to be whining."

"You said you had my sword. Where is it?"

"In this room." Rachel gestured to the single door in front of her as she stopped and turned around in one movement. "Just be warned, your blade may feel a bit…different."

"What do you mean, different?"

"Just look." Rachel opened the door and stepped inside. Sol followed behind her, and saw a pair of swords lying on top of a table. The sword looked a bit different from before: the blade was bigger, and took on more of a broadsword shape than the slightly smaller sword he remembered. Not that he couldn't handle it, but what unnerved him slightly was the fact that the sword seemed to be calling out to him, beckoning him to grasp its handle. Granted, he had felt a similar feeling before when he first grasped the Fuuenken sword all those years ago, but something was different this time.

"Hey, goth girl." Sol turned his attention to Rachel, "you do something to my sword when I wasn't looking?"

"Aside from carry it here and place it in this room? Very little."

"What do you mean, very little?"

"Well, I watched your sword change shape and evolve along with the other blade beside it as they came into contact with the seithr that permeated the atmosphere of this world. Though they started out as crude imitations of Nox Nyctores, by absorbing the seithr in the air around them they put themselves more in tune with the ebb and flow of magic in this world."

"And what about the second sword, is that for me too?"

"No it is not." Rachel dismissed him quickly. "I haven't decided what to do with it yet."

"Then give it to me, I'll take good care of it."

"You can barely handle one Nox Nyctores, even if you were at 100% strength. You won't be able to handle two."

"You seem pretty confident about that."

"I have my ways of knowing."

Sol's hands clenched and unclenched repeatedly. He wanted to grab both swords, cut that damned cat-face umbrella and just escape the mansion before the stuck-up goth girl knew what hit her.

"Guess what? I have mine too." He lunged for the first sword, the Fuuenken, and grasped the handle tightly. "So where's this confidence now, huh?" Sol reached with his free hand to grab the other sword, but found he suddenly had trouble moving as his head suddenly exploded with various emotions. He had trouble keeping track of them all, everything from sadness and anger to laughter and euphoria cycled through his brain.

"You idiot. You have no idea what goes into making a true Nox Nyctores, let alone the mixture of whatever crude version of magic came from your world." Rachel sounded rather bored by the whole spectacle, though a part of her was concerned by this turn of events. "I could swear I told you at some time that these particular items mix with your emotions. If you can't survive this, then what makes you think you can survive whatever enemies await you out there in the real world?"

Sol acknowledged what she was saying, but couldn't bring himself to respond much more than "What…did...you…"

"I suppose I overestimated your abilities after all. Begone from here, and I hope I won't have to see you again." Rachel opened up a rift to Kagutsuchi, and dropped Sol right through it along with the sword he held, leaving Rachel alone in the room with the evolved form of the Fuuraiken.

"Everything all right, mistress?" Nago asked Rachel while keeping his umbrella shape, "You feel tense. Did that man scare you?"

"Scare? Me?" Rachel scoffed, "Of course not, why would he?"

"You showed him, mistress!" Gii squeaked, flying just out of reach so Rachel couldn't slap him again, "Gave him a what for by dropping him out of the room! I bet you should have done it awhile ago, save the trouble of talking to him!"

Rachel shut out the words of her familiars as they lavished her with praise. It wasn't Sol himself that she was concerned with, it was the fact that he now struggled to control the power within his own sword. She hoped to use him as an ally against Terumi, but depending on Sol's next move he would either be a braindead vegetable at best or a wild-card at worst. And now he had the equivalent of a Nox Nyctores in his possession. Neither possibility seemed all that plausible to her.

She would have to choose her next ally a bit more carefully, or else the timeline would have to be reset _again_. Rachel didn't know if she could take another century of sitting back and manipulating the same events to reach her desired outcome, and on top of that these strange visitors that had popped up in and around Kagutsuchi made things even more complicated.

Rachel had to get out of this mansion. She had to go fight something, anything, to calm her nerves back down. Without another word, she opened a rift right next to herself, and stepped through it.

* * *

**[A/N: For those who care, I'm having trouble figuring out how I should continue this story without drawing it out too long and getting sick of it. After some pondering, I decided to simply say that not all of the characters from the two games are going to be shown in this story, just the ones I can figure out a part for. Some more may pop up later, but not all of them will have prominent roles.  
**

**As always, comments and criticism can be pasted into the review section.]  
**


	16. This is gonna be a fun ride

Ragna knew well that there were usually two ways for those who wanted to travel from one Hierarchical City to another around the world. The first way was the most-publicized: Pay a decent amount of cash to buy a ticket, and you could get a ride on a large, seithr-powered airship that could safely cross the wild streams of magic that sometimes caused difficulties in most purely-mechanical things trying to fly through the air. It was relatively safe, and some of the ships even had luxury cabins for those who wanted to travel in style. Usually, if you had enough cash to buy a ticket, the ship's crew didn't bother asking too many questions about you unless you went out of your way to draw attention or an agent of the NOL was lurking nearby, but if you were caught there wasn't much room to escape and a drop of several kilometers for anyone who tried to jump off.

A combination of the latter and the fact that the port in Kagutsuchi was somehow damaged recently led Ragna to take the slightly longer route to reach that city. This route involved walking across the very Earth itself, the parts that hadn't been completely destroyed by the Black Beast or the Library during the war anyway. There were a few people who ran older shuttles, rusty metallic deathtraps that rolled on wheels along the ground. These catered to thrill-seekers, self-styled monster hunters, and those who for some reason couldn't or wouldn't use an airship to travel. It was much cheaper to go this route, but there were occasional monsters along the path, animals that had absorbed too much seithr for their own good and became insane.

Ragna decided to take the initiative as he descended to the lowest levels of the city he was currently in, and asked a few people for the hidden door. However, his version of asking involved walking into a nearby pub, grabbing a bartender by the collar, and demanding the answer through gritted teeth. After threatening the unfortunate civilian in his path, he finally got the answer he was looking for. Ragna decided to drop a few coins on the counter out of courtesy for the information, then left after tossing the bartender back behind the counter. The bartender rubbed his head, scooped up the coins and wondered just what kind of madman he just dealt with.

As soon as Ragna found the ground-level exit with a rusty shuttle idling nearby, he found himself facing a small group of poor vigilantes armed with relatively low-tech weaponry. A few clubs, bats, one rifle, and one sword that had probably been scavenged from some battlefield judging by the bland design on the sheath. In retrospect, he probably should not have threatened the bartender so publicly. One of the problems when announcing where he intended to be was that every two-bit joker with a weapon thought they could take him on, the lure of money winning over the prospect of a painful death.

"Ragna the Bloodedge!" One of them shouted, a man with a pompadour. Ragna fought the urge to laugh back at him. He couldn't believe anyone would take that hairstyle seriously. "The Library's gonna pay us a lot of money for taking you down! How about you make it easy on yourself and surrender now?"

"Look guys," Ragna replied, more out of annoyance than fear, "Do you even know how to handle those weapons? I mean…you're full of openings, you don't have the guts to use that bat on a real person, you haven't even take that blade out of its sheath, and the safety is still on that rifle you freakin' moron!" He pointed to various members of the posse as he spoke, causing them to readjust their grip or look at their own weapons. "I just want to get out of the city, and I'd prefer not to have to run my sword through all of you."

"Sh-shut up!" Another person stepped forward, this time a kid wearing a baseball cap. "You're just afraid of us!"

"And you!" Ragna pointed at the newest speaker who also happened to be holding a bat. "Have your balls even dropped yet?"

"Hey!" Another thug shouted, "Don't insult my little brother like that!"

Ragna shook his head. He could not believe people were so desperate for money they would throw themselves at him. "Fine, you idiots want to die? I have no problem with that. Come at me one-on-one or all it once. It won't matter." Most of the group decided to charge in unison. Ragna obliged them by ducking the swing of the two front-most attackers and kicked at someone's kneecap sending them to the ground. The second man was in too close and tripped over him. A third attacker wielding a billy club found himself facing the ground when Ragna used his mechanical hand to twist his arm around and send him into the dirt.

A fourth attacker took a club and swung down hard. Ragna simply sidestepped the attack, then stomped on his foot before he could regain his balance. As the man cried out in pain, Ragna struck him in the face with the palm of his mechanical hand, then let out a large burst of energy from his Gauntlet Hades, melting a good portion of the man's face off.

Pompadour-head walked up slowly, the sword at his side still in its sheath. "This will be a glorious battle!" He shouted while pointing theatrically. "I shall avenge my br—"

He never got to finish that sentence as Ragna took his sword out and in one swift motion created a "Death Spike," cutting off the man's weapon arm with a strange mass of reddish-looking energy that appeared to have a very evil face to it. Or maybe it was a hallucination? A vision of his last moments on this world? The man suddenly regretted his choice as he begged for mercy.

"Some advice for your next life, you fucking idiot." Ragna growled as he picked the man up by the collar with his mechanical hand and held his sword in the other. "When a well-known killer offers you a way out, you should take the damn deal." He gently tossed the man a few centimeters into the air and stabbed him with the sword before he hit the ground.

The man with the rifle flicked the safety in the opposite direction and began pulling the trigger, but only heard a clicking sound as he began to panic from the sight of his comrades being broken or outright killed. Why wouldn't the gun fire? Was it jammed? Out of ammo? The man didn't think to check, and turned to run.

"HELL'S FANG!" Ragna shouted, skidding forward and punching the would-be gunman hard with his seithr-charged mechanical hand. "You think I wouldn't know how to deal with people like you?" He shouted at the wounded attacker, who was currently trying to crawl away. "You people just don't fucking get it, do you? Any idiot can hold a gun or a club or a blade…it takes training to use it against a man, let alone someone like me."

"P-p-please! Don't kill me man, I've got…"

"Save the excuses for your god." Ragna stabbed him through the chest with his sword, then flicked off the blood with one swift motion before returning it to the sheath strapped to his back. Having finished with that little sideshow, he decided to continue heading towards the hidden door to the outside. The gang members that were still alive would serve as a warning to the others.

A large blast of wind emerged from the open door as Ragna yanked it open. Outside the door was a small campsite of people who either couldn't or wouldn't live within the city. An assorted mix of war refugees, failed experiments and homeless people, living off the garbage that the residents had thrown out without really caring about where it landed. As Ragna walked among them, he felt the seithr slowly flowing around his entire body. He remembered the lessons of his teacher, and let the seithr flow without trying to use it or oppose it directly. Doing either would lead to madness. Assuming he wasn't already mad, anyway.

Eventually, he found the stand with the shuttle stop, and the man behind the counter simply appeared forlorn in a dusty jacket and tan cap as he listened to a sad song on the radio.

"Going somewhere, son?"

"Do you know who I am?" Ragna asked.

"Ragna the Bloodedge, right?" The man spoke without looking up from his radio. "Yep, the Library's been tossin' around fliers of you everywhere they can. Such a waste of paper, considering how many natural trees we have left you think they'd save time with a good ol' fashioned broadcast."

"You're…not afraid of me?"

"Does it matter? Not like I've got much left to do on this planet." The man shrugged, "wife and daughter died in Ikaruga during the war. Thought I could fight against the Library myself, didn't work. Now I just sit here, selling shuttle tickets."

"You've seriously given up fighting the Library?"

The man shrugged again, keeping his gaze on the radio. "Even if I somehow had the power to destroy the Library and everyone in it, what would be the point? God, or Nature, or whatever will always find a way to fill the vacuum of power by creating another evil to fight." The man finally looked up, and Ragna noticed that the man's eyes had no color in them at all, like some kind of freaky cyborg eyes. Maybe he was another failed experiment. "Might be you. Might be Sector Seven. Might be another Black Beast. Another villain will always come, until the day when the balance is thrown so far out of whack that we all kill each other in the process. Now you gonna buy a ticket or just talk with this sad old man?"

Ragna simply dropped some money on the counter, and the man scribbled something on a piece of paper before tearing it off and handing it to him. "Here ya go," the man said, "enjoy your journey and hope the monsters don't get you first."

Ragna said no more, and simply hopped aboard the shuttle with his ticket.

* * *

In a hospital run by the Library, Jam and her two associates walked through the front door in their generic lab coats they purchased from the eccentric weapons and armor dealer. The Jellyfish Pirates were amazed at the state of this hospital, as it seemed a lot more clean and well-lit than any they could remember. Then again, it wasn't like they could always visit a hospital whenever one of them got hurt. Usually they had to make do with battlefield medicine or find a private doctor who would just take some money and not ask too many questions. But the Pirates that had scattered about the city knew that Johnny was taken into this place, so they had no choice but to infiltrate it.

The trio of ladies passed by the receptionist desk and headed through the double doors to her right, and found themselves within a waiting room. Marzo, the tall one, decided to ask a nurse about the location of Johnny.

"Johnny-who?"

"Just Johnny." Marzo said.

"I'm sorry…you're going to have to give a little more information than that."

"Blonde hair, six pack, black coat and large hat?"

The lady thought about that for a second, "Well, I'll have to check. Can I have your name?"

"Doctor Marzo." Marzo replied.

"Doctor? Okay, hold on one second."

Jam kept her smile until the nurse turned her back, then hissed at Marzo, "_Are you crazy? This is never going to work!"_

"_Of course it won't work if you keep up that attitude!" _Marzo replied,_ "Now shut up and play along!"_

"Doctor Marzo, was it?" The nurse turned back after a minute later. "They're waiting for you and your co-workers at 5B. Just follow the map here."

Jam did a double-take. She didn't expect that to actually work, but Marzo simply nodded her head and followed the nurse's directions. It seemed all too easy to Jam as the group passed by the elevator and went to the stairway.

"Wait, aren't we going to take the elevator?" Jam asked her partners-in-crime.

"Not a chance." The shorter girl with the unibrow replied, "We get in there, they trap us, it's game over."

"I thought I was pretty convincing." Marzo said.

"She didn't ask for ID or anything, I think we're being set up!" The girl with the unibrow bounded up the steps. Marzo followed her close behind, and Jam sighed before deciding to follow the two up as well.

Eventually, Jam was just one flight of stairs away from the fifth floor, when the girl with the unibrow suddenly appeared again, being unceremoniously thrown down a flight of stairs, covered in bruises and twitching. Jam managed to catch her before her head hit the stairs, though her back became sore from the impact.

"Shit…" the wounded girl muttered in between raspy breaths, "Looks like I was right, this was all a setup…damn that hurts…"

Jam looked up to see Marzo fighting against a few blue-suited policemen on the stairwell, all armed with electrified clubs. Marzo was at a disadvantage: not only were the stairs right behind her, but she was unarmed and overmatched. Jam laid the wounded pirate down on the steps as best as she could, then took a deep breath.

_And here I was hoping to get through this without needing to unleash my power._

Jam let out a loud _kiai_ and jumped towards the wall, then sprung off of it to reach the top flight of stairs, kicking the rear-most policeman in the face before his mind could even comprehend what was happening. Jam yelled out loud again as she kicked the second policeman, who stumbled into the third, who then tumbled down the stairs with his electrified club on top of Marzo.

Jam gritted her teeth as she looked at the sight. "Ooooh, that looks painful. How about I find Johnny for you guys and meet back here?" The pirates and the policemen on the stairs only groaned in pain. Jam decided to take that as an affirmative response, and she kicked open the door to the fifth floor of the hospital.

Well technically, it was already open, but it seemed so much more of a dramatic way to begin her search.

* * *

Back outside on the upper level of Kagutsuchi, the NOL troops were sealing off the area as Hazama and Noel Vermillion approached the perimeter. Apparently, the Library was still trying to figure out how exactly to get the gigantic monster called Iron Tager off the ground and secured for transport to a research lab.

As Hazama and Noel both stepped past the barrier after flashing their credentials to a nearby NOL trooper, they saw a little girl crouching near the body of Tager, as if she was trying to talk to it.

"Ah, there's our hero now." Hazama yelled excitedly as he gestured with open arms in the girl's direction. "The little girl who saved this town from the flaming Red Devil of Sector Seven…what was her name again? Oh, that's right, May! Come here, May, don't you want to give your boss a hug?"

May shuddered in horror after the events of the past few hours. She didn't want that man anywhere near her.

"Hazama, sir! This isn't the time to be joking, the little girl's probably traumatized!"

"Oh, I'm sure you'd know all about that wouldn't you Noel?" Hazama muttered.

Noel was about to ask what he meant when she saw the smoldering wreckage that was once Mr. Black's home. Noel gasped and ran over to see if she could find any trace of her former mentor. While she was busy with that, Hazama continued talking to May. "That was real good work. I never expected you of all people would be able to defeat the Red Devil of Sector Seven himself. I don't suppose you ever considered working for the Library?"

"I've done what you asked!" May snapped in a petulant manner, though Hazama merely found it amusing considering the words came from a little girl. "Now give me what I want!"

"Oh trust me, you'll be seeing your beloved Johnny very soon. But you haven't done all of what I asked, there's still one more job I have in mind…"

"That's not fair!"

"Fair? You, a self-proclaimed pirate, think this world is built on fairness?" Hazama chuckled, and then slowly escalated his voice into full laughter. "Oh, that's just so rich! If only I could spread those words on an omelet and eat it, I would have the best breakfast in the whole world!"

"Shut up!" May grabbed a piece of stone that had come loose from a nearby building during the battle and threw it at Hazama. Hazama somehow dodged it without even seeming to move, then she saw what appeared to be a giant, greenish dagger protrude from his chest and pull her closer to him without even thinking. She felt the impact as if she'd been stabbed in the chest, but no blood seemed to come out.

"Perhaps you need to learn some manners, little girl."

Hazama slipped a knife out of his sleeve and prepared to go to work when he saw Noel gesturing wildly towards him. Hazama sighed and simply let May drop to the ground, shoving the knife back up his sleeve and putting on a smile as if nothing had happened. May just sat on the pavement, dumbfounded. Somehow, she could take out a giant, metallic beast, but this strange man with green hair and an unreadable face seemed way out of her league. Why? Why couldn't she kill him?

As May sat on the street, Noel screamed as she looked at the charred corpse of what appeared to be Mr. Black. A slightly-melted pistol was held tightly in his dead hand. It was a horrible sight, for Noel as Hazama simply put his hat over his chest and said a brief prayer for the deceased.

"Why, Mr. Hazama?" Noel cried, "Why would Sector Seven do this to him?"

"We may not know all the ways of our enemies," Hazama replied, putting on as much of a serious tone as he could muster, "But we do what we can to make sure that no more lives are lost in service of peace." As he looked at Noel crying, he patted her on the shoulder and said, "Remember our motto?"

Noel looked at him with tearful eyes, but said nothing.

Hazama started off. "Dispatched in mankind's darkest hour…come on, you know the rest."

Noel nodded her head. "Dispatched in mankind's darkest hour…we are the Knights of the Blue Flame." She wiped away the tears as her sadness was replaced with resolve.

"Mr. Black's sacrifice will not be forgotten. I'm sure the Librarium will hold a funeral service in his honor, but we have to make sure it was not all forgotten. Do not worry, once we deal with this Red Devil, we'll be able to strike down the evil of Sector Seven once and for all. Now Noel, I have given you this chance to pay your respects, it is time for you to rest." Hazama said, putting his hat back on his head. "Oh, and take that May girl with you, won't you dear? We could use her help in tracking down Major Kisaragi later."

"Aren't you coming back?"

"I just have to check on something first. I _am_ the head of the NOL's Intelligence Division, after all. So much to be done, so little time…" Hazama almost seemed to be dancing away as he trailed off, leaving Noel, May, the body of Tager and the workers who were trying to disassemble him on-site to make it easier to transport him. To Noel, it all felt so surreal. Her mentor was dead, her supervisor seemed pretty jovial, and now she was in charge of a strange little girl with enough power to topple the Red Devil himself? It made no sense at all.

* * *

"...what the hell do you mean, captured?" Kokonoe screamed as she crunched her teeth down on yet another lollipop while she berated the poor Sector Seven engineer at the other end of the phone. Her dentist was probably going to complain about her teeth again, but that wasn't her main concern at the moment.

"Iron Tager cannot be captured!" Kokonoe continued to rant. "He has the power and size of a goddamn tank! I designed him that way! And now you're telling me…" Kokonoe paused for breath as she shook her head. "Oh, you fucking engineers are useless! Did no one teach you about proximity and overheating? Or is Sector Seven so desperate that they just picked you up out of a fucking high school shop class!" Kokonoe paused for breath again, her face absolutely livid, or so she imagined if anyone other than that subject in the containment cell could see her right now. "Look, we need to get Tager back now! I don't care who you ask or how you do it, we need to recover him right-fucking-now, or that's several hours worth of my time and yours down the fucking drain, not to mention what will happen if the Library somehow recovers his code!"

Kokonoe shut off the connection before the engineer could protest, then banged her fist hard on the nearest table in anger. She blamed herself for sending Tager on that mission to the upper-class neighborhood. She had overestimated how much the NOL would prepare for his arrival. She would not make that mistake again.

She opened the door to her lab and stepped outside to grab another pot of coffee, stopping once to glance in the direction of the subject who had called herself Dizzy. She was going to have to find a way to study that girl, get Hakumen out of the Edge and into her lab, and recover Tager all in one night.

This was going to be a very fun few hours, Kokonoe thought sarcastically to herself as she poured herself a cup of coffee.

* * *

**[A/N: I originally thought about ending it just after the Ragna bit, but I had a few other ideas lying around and thought they were too short to warrant their own chapter, so hey, I combined them all into one chapter for your enjoyment. Hope 2+ fight scenes makes up for the delay in updating this thing.**

**Also, Continuum Shift is coming out very soon. I can't wait for the story of the sequel to suddenly screw up the canon I've built here, but then again we're already in unfamiliar territory what with the whole crossover and the events described above, so let's just call it one potential revolution on the wheel of fate and leave it at that for now.**

**As always, I appreciate those who take the time to leave their comments/criticisms in the reviews section. Keep 'em coming.]  
**


	17. Next time ride the shuttle

"Are you sure you know where you're going?" Ky Kiske asked as he continued to follow Litchi Faye Ling down to the undercity of Kagutsuchi. He swore the sun had disappeared and the moon had replaced it by the time they took to get to what was supposed to be another part of the same city. "We've been walking for a while now."

"If you ask me that one more time, I'm leaving you behind." Litchi responded without turning back. "Besides, I've been down here plenty of times before. Not my fault the lift happens to be under repairs at the moment."

"How did it get so dark then?"

Litchi stopped for a moment and gestured at the sky. Ky shrugged his shoulders and decided to look up as well, only to find that the sky had been replaced by a large metal plate that seemed to stretch on forever.

"The Kaka prefer their privacy." Litchi said as she continued walking. "There were too many normal humans and beast-men up above, even in the lower-class residential areas, so the Kaka clan settled down here instead."

"Don't they need sunlight and water to live?" Ky thought out loud. He was genuinely confused. "I thought no living being could survive without some form of nature."

"Well, it's not totally cut off from the city, just that most people up there don't bother to venture down here. Also, the Kaka clan are not exactly…people in the traditional sense."

"What do you mean?"

"You'll see what I mean." Litchi gestured over to what appeared to be a small, primitive village. Compared to the bustling urban center they had come from not too long ago, it seemed to Ky as if he had stepped into a different world.

"HEY! BOOBIE LADY!" Ky jumped back at the high-pitched squeal as a big…thing in the vague shape of a cat with large, blonde pigtails hopped on top of Litchi. It seemed like an exciteable little girl in a cat costume, but those reflexes were far greater than any human could pull off. "We've missed you sooooo much, meow!"

Ky reflexively tried to hit the cat-thing off of Litchi, but it curled up its hind legs and kicked Ky back with a lot more force than he expected.

"Ky! Calm down!" Litchi shouted, "She's not an enemy!"

Ky reflexively reached for his sword, only to remember that he wasn't carrying it anymore. _Damn, of all the times to be unarmed…_Ky found himself freaked out a little more when the cat-thing hopped off of Litchi and looked at him with a face that seemed to be entirely black save for a pair of featureless eyes and a couple rows of sharp white teeth shaped in a frown.

"You're a mean guy, Ky, for attacking me like that!"

"Mean? What did I do?"

"I coulda hurt my foot when it hit you! Apologize to meow!"

"Me? How about you tell me what the hell you…"

Litchi groaned. She knew that this was going to happen when the two of them met. "Will the two of you please calm down?"

Ky couldn't believe it, the cat thing was singing happily. "You sure this isn't an enemy?" Ky asked Litchi as she regained her composure. "She's got more mood swings than a toddler on a playground."

"Yeah, well…that's Taokaka for you."

"Nice to meet you, Mean Guy!" Taokaka held out its hand, or paw, depending on one's perspective. "I'm Tao, of the Kaka clan. You have any food for me?"

"I don't." Ky shook his head as he gestured with his open hands.

"You're a Mean Guy!"

"Stop calling me that!" Ky growled, "I'm not a…"

"Mean Guy! Mean Guy! Kyyyyy is a Meeeeaaan Guuuuuy!"

Ky threw up his hands and gave up as Taokaka broke into another chorus of "Ky is a Mean Guy." Instead he asked the more sane woman who was barely concealing her laughter at the whole spectacle. "Dr. Ling, what _is_ she?"

"Well, the short version is that she's one of the genetic descendants of one of the legendary Six Heroes, designed to fight the Black Beast or similar threats should the need arise."

"And are they all," Ky paused as he tried to think of an inoffensive term, and then continued, "_special_ like her?"

"No, no...the Six Heroes were very good people, at least from what I've heard. Considering it's been almost a century since that war, no one's really able to say what they were like aside from the stories written about them."

"If this is their descendent, then maybe they were killed by…ow!" Ky rubbed his cheek as Litchi smacked it.

"You watch your tongue, mister!" Litchi growled. "It's not like any of the Kaka clan chose to be born like this, so show some damn respect!"

"I just hope the rest of the clan shows me the same." Ky said, though he doubted it if this cat-girl was their first representative.

Taokaka had finally gotten bored of singing, and then perked up and said, "So, what brings nya here Boobie Lady? Is Mean Guy your boyyyyfrieennnnnnd?"

"What? No!" Litchi blushed, "Of course not, never in a million years!"

"Ooooh, hear that Mean Guy? You've got no chance, meow!"

Ky shrugged his shoulders. "Not like I wanted to be here anyway. I'm just trying to find a sword." Litchi suddenly felt the urge to smack him again, but this time she wasn't quite sure why.

"Ooooh! A sword-meow!" Taokaka shouted as she made wild gestures, "Is that like one of those spinny things on a string that you go 'whrrrrrrr' and then it goes 'wsshhhhhing!' and the enemy is like 'oh no I'm hurt' and then the person holding the string goes 'no I didn't meown it!' and then he shares food with everyone because he's a pretty boy?"

Ky Kiske was flabbergasted and unsure what to make of this statement. Meanwhile, Litchi seemed amused at the whole spectacle.

"So have you seen a sword or not?" Ky asked.

"Oh oh and there was a little teddy bear that went "RAAAWR" and then I had to cut it but that made pretty boy sad because he really liked it so I thought I'd make him another one but then I went to sleep meow."

Ky shook his head again. He'd have better luck asking a baby to cure cancer.

"Alright you two," Litchi said as she re-slung the medical bag over her shoulder, "Let's go back to the village and see this pretty boy you keep talking about."

"Okay Boobie Lady!" Taokaka shouted as she ran back towards the village. "Try and keep up with meow!"

Litchi ran after her, and Ky followed closely behind, not wanting to be lost down there. Still, he kept one hand on his damaged ribs. The painkillers were not doing their full job, and what should have been a light kick dealt a lot more pain than it normally would have.

"Oh no, hurry up! Taokaka hears something bad in the village meow!" Taokaka shouted and doubled her speed, causing both Litchi and Ky grief as they tried to keep up with her.

* * *

Jam peeked into the different rooms one by one, but was a bit disturbed by the fact that there didn't seem to be any nurses or even any security in the hallways. There were a few patients here and there, and there was one oddity where a tall, bald doctor appeared to be hovering over someone by a bed, but aside from some sick or injured people there didn't seem to be anyone on the floor. Jam started to wonder both what happened to all the people on the floor, and if Johnny was ever there to begin with or if the Jellyfish Pirates had simply been following a bad lead out of desperation.

Finally, in an unmarked room at the end of the hall, Jam found a well-muscled man with long blonde hair. He looked quite different without the clothes and the sword he always seemed to have around him. Now he was just lying sedated on a hospital bed, clad in little more than a hospital gown with an IV drip running into his arm.

"Johnny, can you hear me?" Jam took the IV needle out of his arm as she tried to rouse him awake. "Johnny, you've gotta wake up! The whole crew needs you!"

"Crew…" Johnny mumbled, his eyes still closed. "Izzat you May? You know we got a good haul that last time."

"C'mon Johnny! You have to wake up!"

"#3, hold the sauce…" Johnny mumbled, shaking his head as he spoke to some imaginary figure, "You're too young to be drinking July, it doesn't suit you. Gotta be 'n example 'n such…"

Jam tried to lift Johnny out of the bed, but had difficulty, as she didn't have the strength to deadlift Johnny's weight with her arms alone. It seemed rather ironic: she could take down a man of Johnny's size and stature with a few chi-powered strikes to his weak points, but she couldn't make him float in the air. It didn't seem fair. "Johnny! Tell me you can stand! Your girls need you! Your ship needs you!"

"My girls? Heh." Johnny chuckled. "Certainly we've come a long way, a tight-nit crew. Chased after plenty of women didn't we? Oh sensei, if only you saw me now…"

Jam struggled to drag Johnny off of the bed, and settled for putting him in a sitting position instead.

"There's a bright light…" Johnny continued to mumble with his eyes closed. "I've kept hearing, don't go towards the light. You go to it, no going back, but the light…"

Jam began slapping Johnny's face around with one hand as she grabbed his hospital gown with another. "I need you to pay me so I can start up my restaurant with fire-proof walls this time! Just wake up already!"

Johnny finally caught her hand as she prepared to slap him again. His eyes were open, if only a little. Jam was unexpectedly surprised, as she couldn't recall ever seeing his face without a pair of sunglasses on it. "Thank you for being honest this time around." Johnny put his free hand up to his face, "Damn, how hard did you slap me?"

"Are you awake? Can you stand?"

"Don't see much better choice staying here." Johnny slowly rose from his bed, "Would you know where they put my clothes and my sword?" Jam shook her head. Johnny tried standing, but immediately felt dizzy as he touched the ground. The drug had not fully left his system yet. "Well then, let's get out of here. Do you know where the others went?"

* * *

Ragna the Bloodedge idly tapped his foot on the floor of the cabin as the shuttle chugged along the path. He trusted that this driver knew the best route to get around the various seithr-infused monsters lurking around the area, as no sane person would otherwise subject themselves to this job. Still, it made him a teensy bit impatient as he had little to do but wait. He had been awake almost non-stop for the past few days, running on adrenaline, hatred, and thoughts of his own mission. As the sun began setting in the sky, Ragna rested his eyes for a bit, and then drifted off to sleep.

Some time later, though Ragna didn't know how long he had slept, the shuttle suddenly jerked and kept moving. The driver growled, "Something's on the roof, you mind checking it out?"

Ragna shook the sleep out of his eyes. "What? Why do I have to find it?"

"Because I'm driving this thing, and I'm pretty sure you can handle it with that sword of yours."

"Fine, I'll do it." Ragna opened a window as the man continued driving the shuttle, and peeked upwards.

He flinched as he just barely avoided a metallic blade cutting his head off, then slipped back into his seat

"Did you see anything?" The driver asked.

"That depends, do metallic weapons count?"

The driver hit the brakes hard and caused the vehicle to jerk to a sudden stop, hoping to throw off who or whatever was clinging to the roof. Instead, both the driver and Ragna heard a loud grinding noise as part of the roof seemed to fold in on itself. The entity on the roof was digging in to avoid getting thrown off.

"Stay in here, don't move." Ragna picked up his sword and opened the door. "I'll take care of it."

"Yeah sure," the driver responded, "It ain't like I'm trying to live or anything."

Ragna stepped outside into the evening air and saw the outline of a muscular man with a relatively big sword standing on the roof of the shuttle. Without saying a word, the man leapt off and faced Ragna.

"Okay, who are you? Another vigilante?" Ragna tightened his grip on his weapon, "Don't you people get the memo that Ragna the Bloodedge will kill you if you are stupid enough to attack him?"

"Another one…" The man growled, "You're just another punk come to kill me."

"What? I'm not the one who jumped onto a speeding shuttle!"

The man lifted up his own sword into an attack stance. "You're Ragna the Bloodedge? Maybe I can see if the smiling ghost was right. Just give me your right arm and I'll be on my way."

"Sorry, I'm kind of attached to that arm. Who the hell are you?"

"Just call me Sol, though it won't really matter soon enough."

"Sol, huh? I'm really tired so let's—" Ragna didn't get the chance to finish his sentence as the man calling himself Sol rushed forward and began attacking. Ragna raised up his sword to block and skided backwards from the sheer force of the blow. This vigilante, or whatever he was, immediately seemed different from other men he had fought.

Sol focused his power into his sword, and it suddenly burst into flame, scorching Ragna's red jacket with his next attack. Ragna became distracted as he began patting the fire out on his sleeve, he didn't raise his sword all the way when Sol attacked again, cutting his natural arm and sending pain shooting through his left side.

Ragna shifted his stance to put less pressure on his left side and beckoned Sol to attack again. Sol feinted a thrust and when Ragna brought up his sword to parry him, Sol nicked him in the torso with his sword before Ragna hopped away.

"Dammit…who are you?"

"Like I said, does it matter?" Sol shifted, preparing to attack again. "Just let me do this quickly and there will be less pain involved."

"Sorry, but I can't die just yet." Ragna said.

"Have it your way." Sol jumped forward, planting his feet and again feinting an attack, but Ragna didn't block. Instead, he built power in his legs and then jumped up in the air, leading with his own large sword as he cut a dark-reddish streak through the air. All the while, he yelled the words, "INFERNO DIVIDER!"

Sol found himself lifted up in the air, then felt Ragna punch him in the side, sending him flying into the nearby shuttle and leaving a small dent in the side.

"Hey!" The driver shouted, "You said it would be safer inside!"

Ragna tried to think of a response, but could not as the driver started up the engine. Apparently convinced that here was no longer safe, he decided to hit the gas. Ragna ran to catch the shuttle before it left, but Sol sent a streak of fire towards him, forcing Ragna back.

"You're not going anywhere until this is over!" Sol shouted. "Just die already!"

"You first." Ragna muttered. He moved within striking distance of Sol and feinted a thrusting motion of his own, then stabbed his sword into the ground in front of Sol. Sol reflexively hopped back, but before he touched the ground again Ragna took his sword with both hands and swung it upwards, unleashing a dead spike that sent Sol flying back through his own flames and into the shuttle that hadn't gained enough speed yet to leave. Rather than countering, Sol decided to hang onto the shuttle, beckoning Ragna to try and stop him.

Ragna leaped into the air and pushed himself with enough seithr in his body that he practically dashed through the air until he landed on top of the shuttle. At that point, the driver stopped caring about much else than moving to his destination, hoping against hope that the NOL would maybe stop these two from fighting before they killed him, or each other.

However, the speeding shuttle didn't deter the two combatants from fighting. Instead, they started fighting each other on top of the shuttle. Swords clashed with each other, but neither fighter was willing to give much ground. In fact, there was little ground to give: whoever lost would be sent flying from the shuttle.

As the wind whipped by, the two combatants faced each other for another brief moment. Then struck at the same time, the swords bounced off of each other as the two fighters redoubled their efforts. Ragna tried an overhead slash at the same time Sol kicked his leg out, sending Ragna to the floor. Sol then focused a good portion of magical energy into his blade and struck the surface, just barely missing Ragna with the blade but close enough to do damage.

Unfortunately, this also meant his blade became stuck in the roof of the shuttle, causing the driver to freak out again as he briefly slammed on the brakes, hoping to throw both men off and escape. However, both Ragna and Sol barely managed to hang on. Sol just held on to his sword handle while Ragna held on to a crack in the roof of the vehicle with his right hand. His wounds were healing, but they were going much slower than usual.

"How the hell can you do all this?" Ragna asked through gritted teeth, "Did Jubei teach you too?"

"Jubei? I don't know what you're talking about." Sol yanked his sword out at the same time that Ragna regained his footing, but the shuttle started moving again. "You're not going to last much longer if this is how you're going to fight. C'mon, if this is your real strength, then this is where you're going to die."

Ragna could see the lights of the city of Kagutsuchi in the distance as the shuttle moved closer and closer to its original destination. He was just hoping he could survive long enough to see it in person, but this swordsman was surprisingly skilled.

There was only one way out of this, and Ragna didn't like it at all, but if he didn't use it then he was going to die.

Sol quickly struck, aiming his flaming sword downward again, this time blowing a gigantic hole in the roof that impacted the passenger cabin down below. Ragna ended up jumping out of the way, but he landed at a bad angle that he couldn't quite roll out of. He landed hard on his left shoulder, but Sol did not seem to be as wounded. The shuttle skidded to a stop, as blood began leaking from the driver's head.

Sol shook his head as he began walking slowly up to Ragna, watching for any sudden tricks the white-haired swordsman might pull even in this wounded state. "That was pathetic, Ragna. I thought you'd be a little more of a challenge."

"The fuck do you even want from me?" Ragna growled as he charged his right hand with seithr. He had to buy time to unleash the BlazBlue. It was not going to be a pleasant choice, but at this point it was the only way he was going to survive against this monster. "What makes you think the Library will keep their promise?"

"The Library?" Sol scratched his head. "What's the Library? I just need your arm so I can find my way home."

"My arm…you mean the Azure Grimoire?"

Sol shrugged, but continued closing the distance to Ragna. "Don't know. What I do know is this is the only way I can get home, from the only thing that hasn't tried to kill me since I got here."

"You want the Grimoire so badly?" Ragna slowly raised his right hand, "I'll give you a personal demonstration right now!"

Just as Ragna was about to say the code to unlock the BlazBlue, a familiar cat person appeared from behind Sol. Just as Sol turned around, the cat slapped some sort of Ars Magus on Sol's back in the shape of an ofuda.

"It looks like y'all need to sit back and take a breather, y'hear?"

Sol fell to his knees and grabbed his sword with both hands breathing heavily.

"Jubei?" Ragna asked if it was really him, but he already knew the answer. "What are you doing here?"

"That's all? No, how ya doin' or how's the kids? Well, you could say I was just passin' through. But that ain't important now, is it kid? You were about to get your arm cut off by some two-bit swordsman."

Ragna used his still-usable arm to deal with his bad shoulder. After gritting his own teeth, he relocated his shoulder the old fashioned way. It hurt a lot, but then came a strange sort of numbness as the various nerves began to reconnect with each other. His natural healing power was working its magic, but that didn't mean he liked dealing with the pain in the process "What did you do to him?"

"Well this fella might be a mighty fine swordsman, but it seems that he don't have too much experience dealin' with seithr. Toss in what I'm guessin' is a new Nox Nyctores, and ya got more hormones and hatred ragin' throughout that body than a blue-balled teen bull at a young cow convention."

"Wait, what does that even mean?"

"You'll find out when you're older. For now, that armagus should calm him down, help regulate the seithr in his system, but it's only a temporary fix. The rest is up to him." Jubei looked at Sol, and then back at Ragna. "Whoo-ee, you two certainly made a mess of things, didn't you? This is gonna be more complicated than I thought…"


	18. Shut Up and Deal With It

Jubei saw Ragna look past him and in the direction of the attacking swordsman who was regaining his stance. However, he dropped his sword on the ground nearby and then bent down on one knee.

"Forgive me, please." Sol took a few deep breaths, then continued, "I'm not sure what came over me back there."

"Oh I know exactly what happened." Jubei responded, "stop kneelin' on the ground before you kill us all with your embarrassment."

"Jubei?" Ragna shouted from his position on the ground. "What the hell? Why are you letting him-"

Jubei extended a hand to his former pupil. "You both need to settle down. The man's a strong warrior, no doubt about that. But he ain't used to seithr at all. Heck, I'm surprised he's still able to stand on two feet. I just sucked a good deal outta him with this here talisman, but it's only gonna be a temporary fix. The rest is up to him."

Sol stood up and grabbed his sword again. He reflexively tried to shove it in his sheath only to discover that it wasn't there. Damn, that girl must have removed it earlier.

"So, you're name's Sol huh? I don't suppose you seen a smilin' green ghost around, didja?"

"A smiling ghost?" Sol thought hard, "Well, I saw something in a dream, but…"

"Just as I thought." Jubei closed his eyes, or one eye, as Sol noticed. The other eye was covered by some kind of small eyepatch. He wasn't sure what freaked him out more, that he was speaking to a talking cat with one eye, or that said cat was quick enough that Sol didn't even register him until he slapped a talisman on his back. He didn't give off any kind of feeling that Sol could detect, and that only creeped him out more.

"What's that?" Sol asked.

"Terumi," Ragna growled, "Even now that bastard's mocking me. Sending this guy to finish me off."

"This guy almost killed you, boy." Sol said, pointing to himself, "You might want to rethink your skills."

"You wanna say that again?"

Jubei cleared his throat as loudly as he could manage as the two swordsmen refocused their attention back on him. "Ragna, the stranger's right. You ain't got the skills to beat Terumi just yet. And you, Sol, whatever your name is, I would appreciate it if you would calm down before this escalates into another blood bath. There are monsters running around here, drunk on seithr. Something's got them spooked, and I don't want you to be among them. 'Specially at night."

"We can still take the shuttle can't we?" Ragna asked.

"You could, but the driver's dead and the front end smashed into those rocks over there. Unless you have some tools that ain't just for destroyin' things in that pocket o' yours, we're gonna have to huff it on the 'heel-toe express.' Good news is you folks can probably reach it after a few hours of walking. Bad news is if ya go out now, you'll have to deal with some of the worst monsters this side o' the mountain."

"So what do we do now?"

"Now? Now we make camp. You remember how to do that much, dontcha? One of you go make a fire, one of you get out some food, and I'll keep watch for any crazy critters that pop up. Yell if you see anything."

Ragna and Sol both stared at the cat-person that simply took a seat in the middle of the road. Ragna didn't expect his mentor to intervene in that situation, but Ragna was spooked because he didn't know of any beast-like creature that could walk and talk like an old swordsman.

"Well, what're ya staring at me for? You wanna take your chances with the monsters or do you wanna get some sleep before you hit Kagutsuchi?"

* * *

"Y'know Rosen, I was just thinking of something."

"What is it Gilden?"

"Our shift's almost up, correct?"

Rosen took a look at his pocket watch. It actually had an automatic rotor inside instead of the old-fashioned crank, but it let Rosen work up some sentimental story about the watch when he was trying to impress someone. Not that the story always worked, but the watch did. "Well, now that you mention it, our shift was up a few hours ago."

"You're serious? So why hasn't anyone come to relieve us yet? I thought after the port was damaged the mass evacuation was put on hold?"

"It was. But no one came to replace us. Nothing over the radio or in person letting us know which person would be standing in front of this gate for several hours instead of us."

"Fuck that." Gilden muttered. "I'm not going to spend the rest of my night waiting around here." Gilden grabbed his weapon and twisted it until it grew more compact to carry. "I'm going back to the Library, and I'm telling them this shift is over." With those words, he turned to leave.

Rosen gasped as he quickly put away his weapon in a similar manner and chased after him, "You can't just leave, Gilden! There's no one watching the gate!"

"Oh yes, because the moment we leave some suspicious terrorist is going to magically appear out of the blue." Gilden expected Rosen to respond to that remark, but instead he pointed a finger towards him and said nothing. A few moments later, Gilden turned around and found himself looking at the midsection of some…well, Gilden assumed it was a person. A very tall and lanky person, with a paper bag on his head. Gilden wasn't sure which creeped him out more: that such a tall person was able to appear out of the blue, or that he couldn't keep his big mouth shut when he should have.

"Ah, excuse me," the bag-headed person asked in a polite, yet muffled voice. "Have you two seen anything absent in the area?"

The two NOL watchmen waited for the other to respond to this stranger, but neither did.

"Perhaps I should elaborate…you see, there were people bustling around in a hospital, now there are few. There were many in a barracks, now there are few there as well. Left their clothes behind, but their souls went somewhere else, like something out of a bad best-selling series of novels. Would you two know anything about that?"

Rosen and Gilden both shook their heads.

"Oh? Such a shame. I should have guessed that you two are low on the totem pole. I suppose I'll have to go to the top to find the source." With those words, Faust opened a door and stepped through it, then closed the door behind him.

Rosen and Gilden both did a double-take. This day was getting weirder and weirder. Aside from the fact that the mysterious bag-headed man just appeared and disappeared without saying much, and the fact that said person was able to summon a wooden door out of thin air at the same time, they seemed to be the only two people who noticed while everyone else seemed to be going about their business.

The two of them waited a few minutes before Rosen broke their silence. "You know what? I think I'll go get us some coffee. Looks like it's going to be a long night after all."

Gilden nodded. "I don't think I'll be drinking at lunch ever again."

* * *

"Alright kid, time to wake up."

Dizzy found herself awake with the cat-woman from before looking back at her. Just as before, she had a lollipop stick hanging out of her mouth. Unlike before, she was out of her cell and lying on a metallic table in a sterile, brightly-lit room.

"Maybe I used a little too much anesthetic…can't be too careful I guess, considering I'm running low on options and people I can trust with this job." Kokonoe muttered to herself.

"What job? What's going on?" Dizzy pulled herself off the exam table and felt a bit woozy. As she stood on her own feet, she noticed a couple of odd things: a bandaged spot on her left arm, and a thick collar attached to her neck.

"Look, I need someone to rescue Tager and I can't rely on any of the regular idiots that Sector Seven has in its employ. I've narrowed it down to one place in Kagutsuchi they'll be taking him, especially considering he won't be going anywhere far now that their port is still under repair." Kokonoe paused as she noticed Dizzy trying to pull the collar off herself. "Oh yeah, about that…I didn't have time to fully study your body and I don't completely trust that you won't disappear if I do let you go, so I have to do this the old-fashioned way. Trust me when I say you do not want to take that collar off just yet."

"Why is that?"

"Because it's built so that anyone who tries to remove it or cut it off without my permission will cause it to explode. You might be stronger than a normal human, but I don't think you'll survive long if your head is violently separated from your torso."

"Explode?"

"Yeah, explode. But don't worry, you won't have any issues as long as you do what I need you to do."

"You're mean!"

"I'm a scientist, kid, not an emotional girl who needs a box of chocolates every time she breaks a nail. Now that we're done talking, here is what is going to happen: There's a giant, orange lug named Iron Tager currently being held by the enemy." Kokonoe shoved a small, flat object into her hands. "Now, I need you to plant this beacon on him so I can teleport him out from enemy territory. Just slap it anywhere on his body. Any questions?"

"Um, is this teleportation going to be painful?"

"The teleporting? Not really, as long as you just relax and let your mind wander. Otherwise it gets a little dicey. At least that's what our designers tell me. I'm going to send you on your way to his last known location. Hopefully he'll be back online soon and I can give you a more current location."

"What do I—"

"No more questions," Kokonoe snapped, "Just find him!" With those words, Kokonoe pushed a button on a remote hidden in the pocket of her lab coat, and Dizzy disappeared into thin air, leaving little more than a small hint of ozone in the air. Everyone asked questions before the teleporting, didn't they understand that there was no such thing as 100% risk-free in this world? Kokonoe muttered a curse. If only they'd listen to her maybe the world wouldn't be in such a terrible place right now.

Having finished that, Kokonoe then turned her attention to her next project. "All right then, where was I?" Kokonoe tossed away the soggy stick from her mouth where a lollipop once stood and immediately replaced it with another as she sat back at her computer and put on a headset. "Hakumen, can you hear me? My name is Kokonoe, and we're going to be attempting to pull you from the Boundary. Try not to assert yourself too much or this process is going to be problematic…"

* * *

Iron Tager was not unconscious when he was being locked up to a large cart and carried away. On the contrary, his system was still active, so he could record everything that happened. The surprisingly-strong little girl who had put him in this position had whispered that they were holding someone she loved hostage, so it wasn't personal. Unfortunately, that gave Tager very little comfort as he tried to think where he was being transported.

After a few hours, he realized that they were not taking him to the library branch, nor to a Public Affairs office or even to the docks for transport and processing. Instead, they carted him into what seemed to him an empty warehouse and simply left him chained there. Several minutes passed with no visible sign of any friend or foe coming to check on him.

Tager decided to try using his power of magnetism to free himself, though in this position it might damage him, he had little choice. It was either this, or wait for someone to come and do it for him. He did not want to risk the possibility of another enemy coming for him, so he focused his energy in the magnetic gauntlets in his arms.

A warning flashed through his head. The coils would not open. Doing such an action now might damage his arms instead. He tried passively opening the coils little by little instead of all at once, trying to loosen the chains enough that his strength could do the rest. Tager was so focused on this task he didn't hear the sound of two sets of feet entering the same room.

"Hazama called me here for this thing?" The man sounded insulted, "Hmph. That cat has certainly been busy, but in the end, all she accomplished was making a clumsy toy. I don't know what he sees in this, but I suppose extra precautions have to be taken due to recent events."

Tager slowly felt himself breaking free, the chains were starting to come loose and Tager was able to pull himself off of the cart. Before he could stand up, large, metallic hand suddenly grabbed his head and squeezed.

"Ignis, leave this thing intact. We're going to need it in time for tomorrow's festivities."

Tager had no idea who or what this "Ignis" was that the man was addressing. But with one arm it grabbed him by the head and yanked him forward before he fell to the ground again.

"I wonder, Iron Tager, do toys feel pain? Did you experience such a sensation when that Kokonoe was shaping you into this monstrosity?" The man continued talking, though Tager could not see him. "My creation here felt a lot of pain as I shaped her into the form of this puppet, and now she has no complaints at all. Ignis has come out all the stronger for it."

Tager tried to push himself up, but Ignis kept a firm hold on his neck, preventing him from rising up too far without risking damage to what was left of his spinal cord.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to make a few adjustments," The man said as he yanked out a small plug attached to his back. "Look on the bright side, you might not feel anything at all from this."

Tager's world suddenly went dark.

* * *

**[Author's Note: I apologize for the multi-month delay this chapter has taken to come out. I could label the reasons why, but none of you will care. You only care about the finished product, so here it is. **

**Story-wise, what I will say is that I've been trying to find some way to get Chipp and Axl back into the story, but every scenario I can think of seemed stupid or just plain boring. They may show up next chapter, I don't know for sure. What I do know is that the next chapter should have some more action in it if everything goes as planned, and with luck the next chapter shouldn't take several months to complete.**

**As always, feel free to tell me how I'm portraying your favorite character rightly or wrongly in the reviews.]**


	19. Can't We Talk This Over?

Chipp and Axl had both taken refuge inside a small shop that cooked entire bowls of ramen noodle soup. They had grown tired from running around all day with very little idea of where they were, who was after them, and where to find the large red man from before.

"I'm just saying…think about it for a second." Axl said in between slurping up a fork full of ramen. The man looked at both men with a weird look but served them anyways. "What if we did travel in time and this is a possible future again? Maybe we've been called here for some purpose. At least I hope so, because this is getting really annoying."

"If this is the future, then I want my fucking money back." Chipp muttered before he sipped the rest of the salty broth from his bowl. "I was kind of hoping the future wouldn't have the same ghettoes, drug pushers and people with bad taste in clothing like when I left. Maybe it's the future that came because I couldn't be there to be the President."

"Well regardless, we're stuck here mate, 'til we figure out what's up and what's down."

"Shouldn't we find a way back to our own time?"

Axl slammed his fist on the counter, causing everyone to look in his direction for a brief moment, including a stern look from the owner of the shop. "You think I haven't been trying to figure that bit out for that past several years? I don't even know how I appeared in your god-forsaken world before, let alone how to get back."

"Woah, sorry about that…"

"Don't you give me that shit. Someone's been playing a cosmic joke on me for the past…however long it's been. I'm starting to get a touch miffed about it all. So if you have nothing else to say, shut your sodding mouth and let's get on with it!"

Chipp shrugged his shoulders. "Okay, geez, sorry I asked."

Axl took a deep breath and then unclenched his hands. "Pardon me, I let myself go for a bit…it's just been years since I last seen my old girlfriend. Even if I did somehow get back to my own time, I wonder if she would even remember who I am."

Chipp and Axl both sat in silence for quite a bit. When it came time to pay the bill, Chipp and Axl both dug through their pockets, only to realize that neither person had any cash money on them.

* * *

Dizzy's vision turned white for a moment as she was involuntarily being shuttled through some sort of space. She wasn't exactly sure what to call it, even if she did have a bigger vocabulary with which to describe it, considering she had never experienced this sensation of teleporting before. For the briefest of seconds, she felt a jerking motion, like some cosmic force was tugging her in a different direction than…well, than whatever was considered "forward" in here.

Then suddenly it was over, and she was facing a small blonde girl while standing in a grassy field. It looked like something akin to a park, considering the grass seemed to be the only thing natural in this area while everything else was composed of drab-looking buildings, and frozen in place.

Dizzy blinked a few times and looked again. Yes, everything seemed frozen in place. The people, the clouds, the lights, everything. All Dizzy knew was that it was nighttime, but she didn't recognize this city at all.

"I say," the blonde girl shook her head as she spoke, "That poor cat tries so hard to justify her flight from magic even as she explores every avenue of replicating it through technology. It's quite pathetic."

Dizzy wasn't sure what she meant. The cat? Was it that doctor who had yelled at her just a moment ago?

"She did take the time to wrap a collar around your neck though. Who knows, you might be useful after all."

"What do you want?" Dizzy asked.

"Simple, I'm feeling particularly bored." Rachel suddenly stretched her arms out as her familiars fitted themselves into each hand. "So I wish to fight you."

"Fight? But I…I don't want to fight!"

"I'm sorry, but for you, the time for being a mere spectator has passed. Now show me what you can do."

Dizzy tried to beg Rachel not to fight, but Rachel advanced on her anyways, causing Dizzy to jump back in reaction. She flew up into the air, surprised that there was still air around to fly.

"I see, so those wings aren't just for fashion. But you overlooked one thing, the winds are my domain."

Rachel gestured towards herself, and Dizzy suddenly felt a powerful wind current drawing her closer to the blonde girl until her pink familiar launched itself into Dizzy's stomach, knocking the wind out of her.

"Please stay down. I would prefer it if you simply stayed out of the way. It would make my job easier."

"Stop it." Dizzy muttered as she slowly regained her breath.

"What was that? Are you seriously going to beg me?"

"I SAID STOP!" Dizzy suddenly launched a series of fast attacks at Rachel as she briefly took to the air to dodge. Suddenly, a bluish beam of energy cut across, ripping off some of her hair in the process. Rachel looked to see some sort of large blue mouth floating in the air. And the heterochromatic wings of Dizzy had changed. They were not just wings any more, but they looked vaguely like people: one an angel, the other some sort of demon.

"Oh, this is an interesting development." Rachel mused. "The beastkin has her own familiars?"

"Mistress, who are you talking to?" Gii asked before he found himself sucked up into Nago's body. Everything went dark for a second, until he was fired like a cannonball out of Nago's mouth at Dizzy. Dizzy dodged the shot, but Nago was not amused. "Gah! Let me know when you're going to do that next time!"

"Indeed, manners are underrated these days." Rachel said as she summoned a large rod down from the sky where Gii had hit the ground a moment before. Suddenly, the large blue mouth fired a bluish laser again. Rachel wondered why it would bother to add a visible color to its attacks when an invisible beam would be more effective, but then Dizzy launched herself at Rachel again. Rachel jumped away and planted a second lightning rod in the ground with Gii's mark.

Drawing upon the power of her Sword Armagus, she struck the laser-shooting mouth down with a powerful bolt of electricity. Unfortunately, the moment she turned her attention away from Dizzy, she was struck by a powerful gamma ray attack and sent flying. Nago barely had enough time to form into a shield that would absorb the impact.

When it was over, Nago was growling from the impact as he lay in a puddle on the floor. Meanwhile, Rachel looked up at Dizzy, who seemed to be speaking to the faces that appeared in her wings.

"You are certainly an interesting girl. Perhaps you can be of use soon enough." Rachel stood up and brushed off her clothes, then spoke to her familiars, "Nago, Gii, we're going home for tea now."

"B-but mistress, that thing…" Gii trailed off as he saw Rachel giving him a deadly stare. "…forgive me mistress."

"Y'know, I think you like being punished." Nago said as he hunched over to Rachel's side. His form had difficulty taking another shape after using most of his power trying to defend Rachel from that blast of energy.

"Wait, what do you mean?" Dizzy asked. "Who are you?"

She didn't get an answer as Rachel stepped through a portal and disappeared with her familiars. As she left the scene, the world started up again as the lights and colors of the world came into focus as opposed to the frozen, gray world of before. Dizzy noticed it was nighttime now, and she was standing in some sort of small park in a city. People were walking around and seemed to be enjoying themselves while Dizzy stood there. It felt more surreal than the fight with the strange vampire girl who had talking pets at her side.

* * *

Chipp and Axl finally took a moment to catch their breath when they found shelter inside something called a NOL Public Affairs office. Neither of them were quite sure what an NOL was, but they hoped that someone inside could at least tell them where they were and how they could get back, or at the very least provide them shelter from the noodle cart owner who was less than pleased they had decided to "dine and dash."

In a strange contrast to the gritty and run-down streets and buildings they had encountered so far, the office seemed quite open and well lit with various LCD screens and monitors only adding to the ambience. There were plenty of people in the lobby sitting on chairs, standing around, or grumbling to each other about various issues, the air punctuated every so often by someone complaining loudly. The brightly colored NOL propaganda posters on the walls apparently did not help the general mood.

Axl decided to glance at another board that apparently listed the pictures and names of various people wanted by the authorities for one thing or another. Everything from simple bail-jumpers to criminals with a rap sheet longer than a large roll of toilet paper scrolled by. One name suddenly had a red line crossing it out, a criminal named Iron Tager with a face that looked a lot like the fake-Potemkin they had run into earlier.

"Hey Chipp, look!" Axl hissed, "It's that guy we ran into earlier!"

"Looking for someone?" A man in a blue shirt and hat asked Axl. He carried a stack of torn fliers in one hand and tapped his earpiece with the other. "I'm assuming you must be a Vigilante, not many people would dress in such strange clothing."

"Hey, respect the Union Jack, mate!"

The man rolled his eyes. "Sure, fine, you wanna dress in a dead nation's clothes I don't give a damn. Look, I don't know why you want to go against the Iron Tager, but it's a moot point now. The devil's already been captured by NOL forces and being transported elsewhere."

"Where can we find him?"

"Don't know. Jail, I suppose, though there are only a few I can think of capable of holding something that size." The man pointed elsewhere on the big electronic board. "Perhaps you'd like to try catching someone a little less life-threatening? Maybe a B-class criminal?"

"Look, sir, we just want to know where we are."

"NOL Public Affairs office, Kagutsuchi. Now if that's all…"

"What is the NOL?"

The man stared at them slack-jawed for a moment, unsure of how to respond. Then he replied, "Okay, now I know you're just making fun of me. If you have any non-stupid questions, take a number from the general information kiosk and get in line like everyone else."

Having said that, the man turned and walked away. As Chipp and Axl grumbled to each other about their luck, the man stopped as some more information was carried out over his earpiece, then turned around and came back. "By the way, I'm told there are a couple of people who left a nearby store without paying. You wouldn't happen to know anything about them, would you?"

"What? How could you possibly think we had anything to do with that ramen cart owner?" Axl asked.

"Who said anything about a ramen cart?" The man raised his eyebrow. "You see, it seems that one of these was wearing a see-through shirt, and a second was wearing a jacket with a pattern that looked a lot like the one your English friend has on."

Chipp's eyes looked to his left and right. There was a subtle movement of blue-shirted troopers wading through the crowd, trying not to panic any of the civilians in the lobby.

"You're either very brave, or very stupid by taking shelter in a Public Affairs Office. Whatever the case, you're trapped now. Surrender and you'll get a light sentence. Refuse and this will get ugly."

Suddenly the man shouted, "RESISTING ARREST" before either Chipp or Axl could respond and lashed out with a police baton. Chipp's reflexes kicked in as he grabbed his wrist as he thrusted forward and twisted the man's arm around, forcing him to drop the weapon before he threw him into the bounty board.

"Well, guess our choice has been made for us." Axl said, "Couldn't have talked it out, could you mate?"

"Hey, you saw him attack first."

Axl shook his head, "I just wish that one of these time warps sent me to a world where grabbing a weapon isn't everyone's first reaction."

"Quiet, we've got our own problems now." Chipp and Axl both grimaced as they saw the oncoming NOL troopers being a lot less delicate from rushing over to their position and neither of the two had any weapons save for the baton they liberated from an NOL policeman. This was going to get ugly. The only reprieve they had was that all of the potential attackers only had melee weaponry.

Then a brawl began as spectators gathered around, forming a de-facto half circle that covered both the police and the two offenders. Chipp took on two fighters using only the baton, but both of the attackers carried spears and made it tough for him to get inside their block. Whenever he advanced on one, the other would nearly skewer him until he dodged and hopped back.

Axl was reduced to using only his fists and whatever skills he had picked up over the course of his fighting, considering his usual sickle and chain were nowhere on him. However, despite getting a couple of lucky shots in, one man punched him with some kind of metallic glove that delivered a powerful shock to his ribs, knocking the wind out of him for a few seconds. Chipp turned to assist him, but the attackers surrounded him and beat him back as one of them pinned Axl to the ground before he could get back up.

_Well, this is not looking good._ Axl thought to himself as Chipp got backed up into a corner. The policemen were getting more and more confident. Suddenly, Chipp jumped up, briefly planted his feet on the nearby hard plastic covering the bounty board behind him, and sprung off of it, changing his position. Before he landed, he delivered a flying dropkick to the face of the trooper pinning down Axl with his boot, sending him skidding on the floor.

"Stop them!" One of the troopers shouted, "Bonus to the one who takes them both down!" Every trooper and even some of the civilians in the lobby suddenly looked in their direction and Axl and Chipp both picked themselves up. Someone let out a strangled cry as the troopers surged forward. Most of the civilians parted ways, not wanting to get directly involved with either the attackers or the NOL troopers fighting them. As Axl and Chipp moved to escape from their opponents, they saw themselves facing a mighty bipedal beast who had the face of a striped tiger and the body of a man who spent a little too much time at the gym.

"Hmph, Vigilantes are getting softer these days." The beastkin growled in a very deep voice. "Two of you against several inexperienced NOL police and the best you can do is run away?" Axl noticed that an unconscious man dressed in strange clothes laid down next to the big creature. He also noticed that the creature was wearing metallic bracers that looked vaguely like handcuffs, but didn't seem connected by anything. "So tell me," the beastkin spoke over the two strangers. "If I assist you in capturing these fugitives, what do I get in return?"

The policemen stopped for a moment, but kept their weapons up, "Y-y-you'll get a lighter sentence! I swear, when you're brought before Arbitration…"

The beastkin then looked down at Axl and Chipp without listening to the rest of his sentence. "And you, what will you do for me if I help you escape?"

"You'll have our eternal gratitude and assistance for being the one who won't kill us." Axl said without really thinking. Chipp shot him a look that said "_Are you fucking crazy?"_ and Axl shot him a look back that said _"Do we really have a choice here?"_

"Hmm, I'm not entirely sure how the two of you would provide assistance…" the beastkin mulled the offer for a bit, "…but I know what my fate will be if I stay here. I will accept your offer for now."

The two troopers with spears lunged forward then as the beastkin blocked them both with his metallic bracers. The troopers attempted to pull their spears back but the metal tips each stuck to a bracer. Without asking for an explanation, Chipp and Axl lunged forward into their guard and each punched a trooper hard in the stomach, forcing them to drop the spears before they followed up with a knee strike to the face. A third trooper with metallic gloves tried to punch Chipp in the face while he was occupied, but the beastkin grabbed his arm and threw him into the crowd before he unleashed his electrical charge.

"We must leave, now." The tiger ripped off the spears accidentally attached to his gauntlets and thrust them into the glass doors at the front of the entrance. Axl wondered in the back of his mind if that was necessary, but he had more important things to worry about as the newly-formed trio escaped from the office and began to run, ignoring the shouting and whistles behind them.

It was going to be a long night.

* * *

**[Author's Note: Finally, I found some way of making Axl and Chipp semi-relevant again in this story! **

**So many stories these days are unfinished. I swore to myself that I would at least finish the Calamity Trigger-ish arc before I stopped writing this thing, even if the chapters are slow in coming into my brain.**

**As always, I welcome your praise and/or criticisms in the reviews.]  
**


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